Our Consultants participate in the creation of intellectual property (IP) in three primary ways.

First, many of our Consultants are thought leaders in their own right. Many have published well-known articles and best-selling books on a variety of innovation and customer-related issues – what we broadly term Customer-Inspired Innovation. These Consultants contribute to the MAC Partnership both their Intellectual Property (IP) and the applied field of experimentation created by their keynote speeches, workshops, or consulting interventions.

Our Consultants also play a key role as part of the firm's Intellectual Property Committee. The IP Committee of the firm is responsible for the selection and development of frameworks and models the MAC Partnership will ultimately sponsor in its practice. In particular, the IP Committee is responsible for identifying the emerging methodologies potentially of interest to us in the world of business concepts. The IP Committee also sponsors the Methodology Fairs where generators of IP present their approaches to the MAC Partnership.

On a highly selective basis, the MAC Partnership will work with outside consultants with interesting IP, and will support the development of their concepts. We only do so in circumstances where the IP falls within our chosen field of practice – Customer-Inspired Innovation. We also require for this IP to be highly original in nature, and to have proven itself already in early cases of implementation with clients. The best way for the MAC Partnership to assess the state of the IP involved is to participate with the thought leader in cases of implementation of the methodology being proposed to us. In particular, we never invest into any IP that only exists on paper.

We proactively seek out solo consultants we have identified as generators of interesting intellectual property. We also receive a steady flow of unsolicited approaches developed by consultants seeking to expand the field of application of their approaches. We periodically organize Methodology Fairs where our Intellectual Property Committee reviews the material involved and selects a few for development by the MAC Partnership. We charge a fee for this service, both as a way to cover our costs and to ensure that the proposed approaches are well thought-out.

The process through which we support the development of ideas is described in the section entitled Idea Development Support.

If you are interested in knowing more about how Counselors contribute intellectual property to the MAC Partnership, please write to Counselors@macpartnership.com.