AUC 2019: Transforming IP into Business Success with Our Client Community

Gina Nuzzo, Director of Training & Development at Anaqua

It has been another milestone year for our company – and one with continued momentum – all of which was celebrated at this year’s Anaqua User Conference (AUC) with our client community. The four-day event (March 25-28) was hosted at the Loews Royal Pacific at Universal Studios in sunny Orlando, Florida. This year marked AUC’s largest turnout to-date with the attendance of more than 200 IP thought leaders from around the world. Some participants included corporate clients adidas, Analog Devices, Applied Materials, Arm, BD, Dell, Honda, and Tokyo Electron, as well as law firm clients Fisher Broyles, Ingersoll Rand, Mei & Mark, and Michael Best. Our most valuable aspects of the conference included the following:

Setting the Stage

As organizations increasingly recognize the strategic role IP plays throughout the business lifecycle, they expect more from their IP teams to drive value. With today’s market demanding both strong operations along with the ability to unlock internal and external IP insights, IP has increasingly become a strategic business function.

AUC 2019 set out to explore how these changes were impacting users and how we can continue to improve both the operational aspects of managing IP portfolios as well as how to make the best strategic use of the platform, enhancing decision making from both private and public IP data.

With this year’s theme, “Transforming IP into Business Success™”, AUC gave leaders the opportunity to come together to share insights and best practices that move the needle and enhance the ANAQUA platform. Together, Anaqua and its client community are innovating and enhancing the industry’s IP management solutions and services that make this year’s “transformation” theme possible for the market.

Honing Skills

Over four days, the Anaqua User Conference hosted hundreds of clients to learn, share, and network. A multitude of training classes covered ANAQUA and Lecorpio functionality. During the first two days, users chose from a wide variety of courses ranging from Core Functionality to more advanced courses such as HyperView, the Law Engine, and Financial Management.

The second two days were kicked off by Anaqua CEO, Bob Romeo, with a look at the state of the business and a fun introduction to AQX with the arrival of Optimus Prime, a Transformer that tied in nicely with this year’s theme. The second half of the conference included a broad range of sessions with clients sharing best practices along with five outstanding keynote addresses.

Learning from the Best

The keynotes were a mix of client and industry speakers. Kazuyasu Adachi, President of IP Management at Panasonic, took the stage as the first keynote speaker and discussed how his team is adapting their IP strategy to support the business. Suzanne Oliver, Senior Director of Legal and IP Operations at Arm, talked about her team’s “inclusive innovation” journey on empowering innovation that not only supports business needs but human needs around the world. Tove Fabritius de Tengnagel, IP Systems Manager at Novo Nordisk, discussed artificial intelligence and how their company experimented with auto-processing and classifying correspondence.

The first of our two industry speakers was Gene Quinn, President and CEO at IPWatchdog, who presented, “Democratizing Innovation in the 21st Century,” a topic highlighting the importance of democratizing innovation for all, not just for a few large organizations. Our other industry speaker, Thomas Bereuter, Programme Area Manager of Innovation Support at the European Patent Academy, European Patent Office (EPO), closed the conference with several case studies showing the strategic use of IP to add value to businesses of all size. Thomas also closed by referencing the theme of the conference, “Transforming IP into Business Success™”, and how relevant it is to the IP industry today.

AQX Product Overview

A highlight of the conference (like in all AUCs before) was the product update session given by Anaqua staff. Vincent Brault, SVP of Product and Innovation; Denise Cheung, Vice President of Product Management; and Erik Bailey, Vice President of Research and Development, gave insights into AQX and demonstrated a number of the new features. Building on modern technology, Vincent and Denise showed off the new home page, enhanced cross-module search, and 360 Analytics, which is the ability to combine internal data with external data from AcclaimIP in HyperView dashboards for expanded analysis and decision-making. Erik took the audience through the expanded financial capabilities, from budgeting to accruals, e-billing, and approvals.

Uniting Clients at Conference Festivities

In addition to the general sessions, attendees had the opportunity to network with their peers as well as share best practices at nearly 20 breakout sessions. These sessions covered both corporate and law firm patent and trademark needs, as well as exploring both industry direction as innovative uses of the software.

While the attendees certainly had numerous learning and networking opportunities, it wasn’t all work. Beyond enjoying their visit with Optimus Prime, attendees were entertained Tuesday at the Havana Nights dinner, with the Jersey Tenors putting on quite a show. And everyone got to enjoy Universal Studios Wednesday night, with dinner and access to the park.

Anaqua clients continue to be partners in helping to drive the innovation and enhancements of our products and services. We know that our growing community truly is a reflection of the market, and therefore, Anaqua is a reflection of our clients. We continually hear how valuable the AUC is, and we hope to see everyone next year.