Part 8 Intellectual Property Paper

Part 8: Ownership Creativity and Innovation: Intellectual Property

Innovation is an important part of the auto industry. However, for innovation to pay dividends to a company, the company must have ways to protect its intellectual property and inventions (General Motors, 2015d). General Motors includes a section in its employee Code of Conduct entitled, "Protecting GM Information" (2015d). This section states that it is every employees responsibility to protect "GM information" and goes as far as to say, "This is not optional - it is absolutely critical that we diligently protect company information" (General Motors, 2015d). The Code of Conduct provides many examples of information that should be protects, such as: plans for products, vehicle designs, Human Resources data, documents related to company strategies, vehicle pricing, financial or technical data and specifications, and meetings between the company and prospective vendors or partners (General Motors, 2015d). Intellectual property is an important aspect of General Motor's business; anything developed at GM belongs to GM (General Motors, 2015d). The company Code of Conduct states "All GM information belongs to GM, not to GM employees, regardless of the nature, medium or form of the information. Your ongoing obligation to protect GM information continues even if you leave GM" (General Motors, 2015d).

Most common is the patent (Rosenberg, 2014). According to the Patent Board and the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index, General Motors "is a leader in overall patent filings" (Rosenberg, 2014). General Motors is also "the only company to have achieved the No. 1 position 11 consecutive times in the Patent Board's Automotive and Transportation industry ranking" (Rosenberg, 2014). Discussing the amount of patents General Motors files, chief technology officer and president of GM Ventures, Jon Laukner