For a long time, the idea that intellectual property should be treated as a strategic business asset rather than a purely legal function has been discussed in the profession. The underlying direction is not new. What feels different now is that the market is starting to organize itself visibly around that logic.

Large players increasingly present IP as something that should be connected to business strategy, portfolio direction, transformation and valuation, not handled only once a matter is already defined. Dennemeyer, for example, explicitly describes its consulting offer in terms of starting from a company’s broader strategy, aligning IP to business objectives and covering the full IP life cycle through consulting, software and related services. This is upstream engagement institutionalized at scale.

When the market moves upstream, the question is no longer only what IP experts know. The question becomes whether they are positioned in a way that allows others to involve them early enough to actually use that knowledge.

And this is where I see a recurring gap.

Many highly capable IP experts are still perceived (and often still perceive themselves) primarily as advisors to a defined problem. Their work and expertise are valued. Their clients respect them deeply. But they are still brought in after the frame has already been set.

That is not always a limitation. Advisory work is valuable work. It becomes a constraint, however, when the wider market starts rewarding a broader role: not only solving IP matters well, but helping businesses think and decide earlier,  before a situation has fully hardened.

The issue is rarely a skills problem. In most cases, it is a positioning problem. More precisely: a narrative problem.

The expert has the substance for broader strategic influence. But the market reads them as someone to call once the relevant business questions have already been translated into an IP matter. And that reading is not accidental. It is built, often unintentionally, through the way experts describe their own work.

I see three patterns behind this consistently.

The first is an identity trap.

Many serious experts equate credibility with narrowness. They define their role precisely and cautiously because they do not want to sound vague, oversell, or drift from real expertise. That instinct is healthy. But it can quietly make their expertise look smaller than it actually is. The market then respects them for precision, but does not imagine them in a broader strategic role. Credibility stays, but range disappears.

The second is that their language starts too late in the client journey.

Most IP experts describe their work at the point where a matter already exists. Their positioning assumes the client has already translated their business challenge into a formal IP question. But many business leaders do not think in those terms. They experience commercial pressure, innovation uncertainty, competitive risk. If an expert’s value only becomes visible after those tensions have been converted into an instruction, the expert enters later than they need to, and later than they could.

The third is the invisibility of decision value.

People can often see that the expert knows a great deal. What they cannot always see is when to involve them earlier, what better decisions become possible when they do, and what risk can be reduced before a situation becomes a formal mandate. Knowledge alone does not create strategic influence. What creates influence is the ability of others to connect your expertise to their decisions early enough for it to matter.

The three patterns are not difficult to recognize once you see them. What is less obvious is what actually shifts them, and this is where the real work begins.

Not in becoming louder. Not in turning into a marketer. But in giving expertise a form that can travel further.

Consider the difference between two ways of describing the same work.

One expert says: “I advise on patent strategy and portfolio management.” Another says: “I help companies avoid locking themselves into IP positions that limit their strategic options two years later.” Same depth of expertise. Entirely different moment in the client’s decision process. The second one enters before the question is fully formed. The first one waits for the question to arrive.

That shift, from describing services to articulating decision value, is not self-promotion. It is professional legibility. And for many IP experts, it is the most underworked part of their positioning.

In practice, this might mean describing your work less as a list of competencies and more as a contribution to decisions. It might mean making your reasoning visible (not just your conclusions) so that others can understand not only what you know, but how that knowledge changes the quality and timing of the choices they face. It might mean showing, concretely, where you reduce uncertainty before a formal instruction is even given.

None of this requires abandoning technical depth, but giving that depth a shape others can recognize earlier.

The market is moving upstream. Larger, more integrated players are building offerings around earlier strategic involvement. The space for individual experts to drift gradually into that role may become smaller, not because those experts are less capable, but because the market is becoming more explicit about who occupies that upstream position.

The risk is not simply missing out on visibility. The risk is remaining legible only as a downstream specialist in a market that is increasingly rewarding upstream relevance.

Now a question to reflect on:

Do people currently understand your expertise as support for an already defined IP matter, or as input that improves the quality of decisions before the matter is even fully formed?

The answer shapes more than your positioning. It shapes where in the value chain you are allowed to contribute.

About the columnist

Giulia Donato
Branding & Communication Advisor | Executive Coach | Lecturer
people & brand strategies
www.donatostrategies.com