Intellectual property protection is an important ingredient in the
market success of knowledge-intensive enterprises operating in the information
technology industry. The governance and the extent of protection of
intellectual property related to software often seem to be connected to certain
characteristics of an enterprise, such as its type and size. By analyzing the
publicly available data, the author identifies various patterns primarily
concerning the structure of ownership and management of the software
enterprises in Croatia. The analysis reveals that all of the top 500 software enterprises according to revenue are
closed, with the overwhelming majority being owner-managed and small or
micro-sized. This would suggest that most software enterprises in Croatia are
passive when it comes to their intellectual property. In relation to this, the
author describes three profiles of enterprises depending on their attitude
towards the governance of intellectual property. The author also formulates and
explores four possible complementary approaches to the protection of
intellectual property,
both legal and non-legal, in addition to discussing various types of
intellectual property rights with the aim of identifying those that are more
suitable for the protection of different types of software.
Intellectual Property Protection in Field of Information Technology