Timeframe as Duration

When you specify the rights availability criteria, you can provide a timeframe within which to search for the rights you wish to license to a third party. You can enter this timeframe as a particular duration, expressed in days, months, or years. You can enter the date for the start or the end of the timeframe, which allows the system to calculate the exact dates for the rights availability analysis. The system recalculates the timeframe each time you change the date entries.

Requested License Duration

You can maintain a requested license duration when you specify the rights availability criteria. If you do so, the license period proposed by the system is the earliest possible time period that matches the license duration requested. The requested license duration must not exceed the timeframe. In the Requested License Duration field, you can specify the requested license duration using three operators: Is Exactly, Is At Least and Is At Most. You also select a requested duration unit (day, month or year). If you do not maintain a requested license duration, the system uses the entire availability period for the IP in question.

To use this function, you must activate the business function Intellectual Property Management (CRM_IPM_1).

Holdbacks

You can also specify holdbacks when you define the availability criteria. If you want to use holdbacks, you must activate them in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management under  Industry-Specific Solutions Media Intellectual Property Management Transactions Settings for IPM Transactions Activate Holdbacks . Select the Holdbacks Active checkbox and save your settings. To define a holdback, select a rights group node and choose the Holdback button. The system creates a holdback for this node with its own rights group. If you do not select a rights group here, the system displays an information message instructing you to select one.

You must maintain the rights to be granted for a holdback.

A holdback can have a Pre, During, and Post period. The system automatically uses the value you specify in the Requested License Duration field on the Rights Criteria tab as the during value for the holdback. You must ensure that there is not a gap between the pre and during and the during and post holdback periods. If you enter a value in the Pre and Post fields, you must also enter a value in the During field. The holdback’s during period must not exceed the requested license duration. The total holdback duration calculated by adding the pre, during, and post periods together must not exceed the timeframe defined for the rights criteria.

Calculating Holdbacks

Once you have maintained holdback information in the Availability Criteria step, you select IPs in the IP Selection step. When calculating availability, the system creates a proposal for license periods and holdbacks. You can instruct the system to observe the requested license duration when it calculates the proposed license period. If you do not specify the requested license duration here, the proposed period is the same as the availability period. The availability calculation must be triggered using the Execute, Search and Execute, Execute in Background, and Search and Execute in Background functions.

To use this function, you must activate the business function Intellectual Property Management (CRM_IPM_1).

Availability

After the system executes the rights availability analysis, it displays the rights availability results on the Availability Overview screen sorted by aggregated status and product description. You also see a list of detail statuses for each IP in the hierarchy, which displays sets of existing or missing rights. These sets are called detail statuses. Detail statuses (the mnemonics that are displayed on the overview are listed in brackets) are available from the Availability Details view. For information about the statuses that are available for both the GREQ and the LTHP scenarios, see Guided Activity for the Rights Availability Analysis. The following statuses are only available for the LTHP scenario:

Current IP / Combined IPs

These buttons are also available in the assignment blocks Available Holdbacks and Missing Holdbacks. Choose Current IP if you want to view the rights that are relevant only to the current IP without considering any subordinate IP. Choose Combined IPs if you are interested in the aggregated rights throughout the IP hierarchy considering all relevant subordinate IPs.

IPs that are displayed in the Criteria Fully Met view completely fulfill all criteria. Those that are displayed in the Criteria Partially Met view do not fulfill the criteria completely because some rights are only partially available. If the criteria are fully met, a holdback is associated with a license period and is assigned to a group. If the criteria are partially met, holdbacks and license periods are not assigned to a group and are not associated with one another.

The Criteria Fully Met and Criteria Partially Met views display a proposal for each license period and holdback that is calculated using standard rules. The system calculates the first possible license period and holdback here. In some cases, other periods and holdbacks are also possible but they are not displayed here.