Design Option Paper

Industry 4.0 is a process that is leading to fully automated and interconnected industrial production. New Technologies are integrated to improve working conditions and increase the productivity and production quality of plants.
In the context of Industry 4.0, digital technologies enable business to:

• gain competitive advantage;
• expand their markets;
• improve their services.

Digitalisation process in manufacturing SME requires specific skills and competences to implement new technologies within the companies. For instance, it is required to make smart traditional products by creating machine to machine or man to machine nteractions.  Such interactions usually allow the collection of data related to the products, for instance: operating parameters, information on the use of the product made by the consumers, etc. All this data needs to be stored, listed, and analysed.

Therefore, to implement digitalisation process manufacturing, SMEs should support significant investments,starting specific projects to adapt the shape ofproducts or to acquire new technological solutions, software, databases, and a place to store data. All these intangible assets can be protected by intellectual property rights, depending on the value to be protected. Therefore, to gain competitive advantages and to make the most investment, companies should pay attention to these important legal aspects of the digital transformation process.

Moreover, according to the open innovation business model, often such assets are provided to companies by external providers. In this way, companies somehow became dependent on providers and this could affect the possibility to ensure the continuity of their business.

Therefore, by signing agreements with providers, manufacturing SME should pay attention to some legal aspects that could avoid a complete dependence on providers, in particular with regard to the intellectual property related to digital transformation. Actually, it is crucial for the companies to ensure themselves the ownership of such intellectual property rights or, at least, the authorisation to access the intangible
asset and exploit them without limit.

With the help of this Design Option Paper (DOP), understanding the key concepts of digital data management of small and medium size companies, assisted by intermediary advisory services will result in their being better equipped to incorporate the software and data IP management systems into their business strategies, and thus boost digital innovation in a new dimension.