There are endless benefits of IP software. It has the power to help you better manage your workload, reduce the complexity of your processes, and save valuable time. Ultimately, these solutions enhance the capacity of your firm and provide a better experience for clients.
IP technology is marketed under lots of different names. IP management systems (IPMS), docketing software, patent management software— this technology has matured in recent years, and the solutions available today are refining the processes used by legal professionals across the world. There has never been a better time to think about adopting a new system.
Let’s explore the benefits of IP software and demonstrate how it helps IP professionals across the world.
Simplify task management
IP professionals face a mountain of tasks, and juggling deadlines, applications, renewals, and finance across a range of clients can be a daunting prospect. Keeping track of dates and activities requires careful planning that can be a burden on organisations and their processes.
Fundamentally, an IPMS will make it easier for you to manage tasks: it tells you what task you need to do and when you need to do it, minimising the time-consuming planning needed in your processes and drastically reducing the opportunities for human error.
IP management software can also keep your whole team working together, it is not just for attorneys. Everyone from a managing partner to a paralegal or legal assistant can use the software to manage their individual tasks, plus your finance team can see everything they need to handle with minimal input from those managing cases. With all your team on one platform, you can work more cohesively and deliver more effective services to your clients.
Save valuable time
By helping you manage your tasks, an IP management system can also save you bags of time.
With integrated document management, invoicing, correspondence, and a variety of templates, an IPMS enhances your existing processes and can provide what you need when you need it. Wrestling with endless files, emails, letters, and notes on a case can add up quickly to occupy precious hours.
IP management systems keep all a case’s files in one place: every application, draft document, and official communication handled by your team is stored in a single location to make it as easy as possible to find the information you need. Having a smart system that automatically organises this for you saves time, freeing you up to focus on the cases themselves.
Correspondence is another task that eats up time. Writing, following up, and filing emails and letters to clients, patent offices, and other attorneys can seem like an endless cycle, but an IP management system offers solutions. In the Equinox system, template emails are automatically generated, it is ready with your case’s details so you can fill in the final information. These templates, which can be sent directly from the system or exported to Outlook or Gmail, cut a significant chunk of the work needed to manage communications. They are also automatically organised within the relevant case to further ease the document management process.
Reduce complexity
Legal professionals rely on a variety of software solutions to manage their cases. With everything from emails to finance software requiring attention, it can be hard to keep track of changes across every service you use. An IP management system can bring all these elements together in one place, allowing you to handle the full life cycle of a case from within the system.
Having a system that integrates with your other services reduces complexity, allowing you to oversee every element of a case’s management in one location and automate your activity across platforms. As mentioned already, in Equinox IPMS emails and document management is handled within the system, but we also have built-in integrations with a host of other services such as Microsoft Office, Xero, Sage, Billtrader, and others, so our subscribers don’t need to leave the system to manage a case throughout its lifecycle.
Keep clients happy
Providing a strong communications channel with clients is vital for IP professionals. It is enormously encouraging for clients to have visibility of how their cases are progressing and offering this instils confidence in your services. There are different ways to achieve this, and the traditional channels of regular updates and meetings will always have their place. However, IP management technology can offer an additional opportunity for your clients to keep tabs on your progress.
In Equinox IPMS, our subscribers’ clients can view the cases and property under management through a client access portal. This round-the-clock access to case progress information ensures clients are confident in the services being provided for maximum transparency and can reduce the number of meetings and calls needed throughout the lifecycle of a case.
Adopting a reliable IP management system simplifies processes and makes it easier for a firm to maintain control over the information it handles. On-premises IP management systems can be difficult to manage, and when something goes wrong, it could take a while to get back on track. Equinox subscribers have constant access to a team of system experts: because they know the software so well, they know how to identify, isolate, and respond to a problem as fast as possible.
“Having the ability to access your system from anywhere on any device is an invaluable asset for any IP professional. It means you can respond to communications and emergencies without delay, reassuring your clients.
“Adopting an IP management system also allows firms to benefit from the multi-layered security offerings by Microsoft, one of the world’s leading cloud providers. The built-in protection against denial of service (DDoS) attacks ensures the physical and technical security of your data.
“The performance of your software can be scaled to meet your needs, increasing in line with your business growth when you need it to. When your firm grows, and you take on more clients, your software can grow with you to keep your team delivering great results.”
Mark Richards, Lead Operations Engineer
Summary: The benefits of IP software
Ultimately, IP professionals and the firms they work in want to keep their clients confident in their services, and the effective practise of intellectual property law will always come down to the skill, experience, and expertise of those legal professionals. Adopting a reliable IP management system offers a great deal of support to those skills you have spent your career refining and can be the golden ticket to enhancing your processes for your whole firm.
A good IP management system manages and organises every one of your tasks to reduce the planning burden and greatly reduce the opportunities for human error. With the whole team using a single system, and with all the information and services you need in one accessible platform, you will likely see a boost in the productivity of your organisation. A more reliable, secure, and transparent system will be mirrored in your reputation with clients and support your well-practiced professional ability.
As Equinox has grown internationally, we have seen Intellectual Property firms from the largest to the smallest see the benefits of our IP software. The future industry leaders are those that embrace technology and earn the trust of potential clients through incredible results.
Want to see Equinox IPMS for yourself?
Our friendly Equinox experts are waiting to show you the ropes.
