Åsa Heiden

SUMMER 2022

Company: ASSA ABLOY

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Hi y’all,

Now it’s our turn to talk about our amazing CiP internship and master thesis work conducted during the spring of 2022 at ASSA ABLOY, a global leader in access solutions. Our names are Julia Häll and Jennie Ljunggren, the unique combination of a lawyer and an engineer creating a new perspective that we like to call “lawineering”.

Well, how did we spend our 6 months at ASSA ABOY?

The main topic of interest was intellectual asset mapping by developing an intellectual asset framework for ASSA ABLOY, to help capture and structure intellectual assets within the firm. The work has been underpinned by the CiP IAM Framework as well as Michelle Fransson and Marta Sadriu’s thesis project regarding data as an intellectual asset.

The rise of intellectual assets comes on the back of the knowledge economy and the increase in the amount of a company’s market value that can be accredited to intangibles. The ongoing march of digitalization around the world further shifts the focus away from tangible assets and traditional industrial manufacturing companies are adopting more digital technologies. There is a lack of comprehension, a knowledge deficiency, and plenty of ambiguity associated with concepts such as intangibles, intellectual capital, intellectual assets, and intellectual property. This creates misunderstandings and increases communication difficulties. The aim of our work has been to assess which intellectual assets contribute to value creation and how these assets can be divided into categories. Furthermore, in relation to the setting of digital transformation, we aimed to investigate if it might have affected the categorization of intellectual assets. Finally, we aimed to investigate how intellectual assets may contribute to value creation through control mechanisms to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

We have learned an unquantifiable amount about working with IP during this time period, however, the major highlight has been the interaction with knowledgeable business professionals and getting the opportunity to pick their brains.

To wrap this up we would like to give a shout-out to Bowman Heiden, his pragmatic approach to life helped keep us grounded as we went through different cycles of highs and lows. Karla Soler Riba’s efforts to facilitate this internship deserve a special recognition. Finally, we would like to thank all the people at ASSA ABLOY, Michelle Fransson and Marta Sadriu, and Katarina Wendin, the best thesis supervisor out there.

Kind regards,

Julia and Jennie

SUMMER 2022

Company: Northvolt

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Hi,

During this summer I got the pleasure of working at Northvolt at their IP department in Stockholm. As a leader for the future of energy innovation, Northvolts mission is to build the greenest battery in the world. Their revolutionizing recycling processes and recently announced joint venture with Volvo cars are only parts of the exiting things to come. Entering this dynamic sphere made is possible evolve on an individual level and contribute to something bigger than the company itself.

At the summer intern position, I got to apply my knowledge from my education into practice and utilize my multidisciplinary combinations to generate results for both department reviews and presentations on a higher level at the company. With my background as an engineer within biotechnology and master within entrepreneurship and business design – intellectual capital management, I was ready to tackle any challenge thrown my way. My tasks included patent analysis, contracting, and performing an independent IP strategy project. The project spanned across the whole summer period and enabled me to interact across departments of business development, legal and R&D. One thing I really appreciated was the openness to learning and interactions across departments and offices. With a big group of over 110 summer interns, we were welcomed to the company through organized events and got the opportunity to attend lunch and learns weekly and CEO hands-on info sessions with Peter Carlsson. This added to the creation of the inspiring environment of the office. We got to visit the Västerås office at Northvolt Labs and were offered to visit the newly built Northvolt Ett in Skellefteå. My manager and the IP team were fantastic at including me various meetings and tasks that I showed an interest for. Allowing me to steer the path of my very own experience at this internship.

This summer has illustrated to me that Northvolt is a place of highly engaged and innovative people. All desiring to contribute to a better future. As a person I have grown in my capabilities of communication and project management. A big thank you to all the amazing people I meet during this summer! I had a brilliant time and would recommend Northvolt to anyone who is looking for a challenge, not solely to their personal skillset but also in solving the problems of tomorrow.

If you are thinking of applying for the internship or have any questions, don’t hesitate to message me!

Best regards,

Sara Friman

SUMMER 2022

Company: Electrolux

Location: Stockholm

Hi! This is our experience from the summer.

We, Albin Boman and Filip Lindblom have this summer been enrolled in a summer internship at Electrolux Group Patents. Electrolux is a global organization that works with patents covering seven different product categories. The highly competitive market and rapidly growing emerging markets provide a scene full of IP-related challenges. We were tasked with evaluating and creating two tools for Electrolux that could be used by their patent engineers and attorneys in their day-to-day work.

The first task revolved around patent portfolio evaluation. Combining traditional quantitative patent portfolio data with market insight a relationship between protection and sales can be created. This relationship is called Exposure. Exposure enables companies to focus their patenting efforts where they really matter. Our tool enables Electrolux to view their current patents and sales for all possible market selections. In total, we included around 9 million data points into the evaluation tool.

The second task was focused on evaluating a single patent, and determining its value for a global producing company such as Electrolux. Through workshops and literature reviews we concluded that a patent can be rated based on three core criteria:

• Detectability of fraudulent use
• Scope of protection
• Strategic fit

In this task we found many challenges relating to how a patent is used in this industry, unlike many other IP fields the home appliance market usually patents only to protect their own inventions, the litigation rate is low and patents are rarely used aggressively. We found that the three criteria above could determine whether a patent is good or bad at protecting the invention, and if the invention is of strategic interest to protect.

Working with an agile methodology with one week sprints guided by two heads of product lines Dr. Christian Mohr and Tore Stjernberg with a dedicated scrum master we saw rapid learning and development of the tools. Due to the scrum setup, our tools could develop from early Miro-sketches into published assets in a matter of weeks.

We really enjoyed the Internship at Electrolux, and we have found ourselves intrigued by the challenges that large producing companies face from a patenting perspective. Don’t be afraid to reach out if you want to know more about the Internship.

Best regards,
Filip & Albin

SUMMER 2022

Company: Volvo Group

Location: Gothenburg, Sweden

Hi everyone! We are (from left to right) Alexander Danielsson, Anton Stjernholm Börjesson, and Andrej Krsteski – three students at the Entrepreneurship and Business Design master’s at Chalmers University of Technology. During the summer, we worked at Volvo Group Intellectual Property’s Strategy & Portfolio department, with a project that brought more responsibilities and provided a far larger impact than we had anticipated. We want to share a couple of words about our experience and the learnings we had from it.

Volvo Group is a producer of trucks, marine engines, buses, and construction equipment, employing almost 100,000 people across 190 markets.

Our task was to perform a patent portfolio analysis, by mapping all newly developed technologies which are to enter one of Volvo Truck’s electric trucks. By the end of it, we were expected to provide thorough documentation of our findings, along with multiple presentations held for employees of interest. Although being handed a large task, we were left with large autonomy in our work, and were thus able treating this as our own-lead project! This allowed us to find our own way throughout the weeks, be creative, and put our own touch on the task at hand. Working on projects during the first year of our master’s studies definitely helped us perform our work during the summer, and the time at Volvo Group IP provided further learnings in leading and executing an IP related project within a large corporation.

Reflecting on our contributions, we are very pleased with what we accomplished. Our division was impressed with what we had produced, and the material will be received and evaluated by highly seated executives within the company. We are delighted to have enrolled in Entrepreneurship and Business Design, as it allowed us to acquire fundamental knowledge about IP and entrepreneurship, which proved to be helpful during our internship. Furthermore, being given the opportunity to produce something that is of major importance to Volvo Group as an intern is something we are very thankful to CIP for.