agribusinessreview.comFEBRUARY 20258OPINIONIN MY PROTECTING IP AMIDST THE PANDEMICBy Kim Jessum, Chief IP Counsel U.S., Associate General Counsel & Secretary, HeraeusThe COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted and impacted every type of business. Companies of every industry and every size have had to change their business model and critical business processes to adapt to these new challenges.Intellectual property has not been immune to the pandemic's impact. In a way, IP has become more vulnerable. As a health precaution, many companies have shifted a large percentage of their employees to work at home. While remote work is safer from a health standpoint, it makes the organization's intellectual property, sensitive company information, and trade secrets less secure and more vulnerable.Protecting IP is challenging under normal circumstances; with more employees working at home and using home networks that may or may not be secure, the pandemic has opened a pandora's box of new threats. This should not just concern CIOs, but leaders throughout the C-Suite.While companies had traditionally offered work-from-home options to some employees, the sheer volume of employees working from home has expanded exponentially. It has forced IT departments to scramble to ensure adequate broadband to support the company's virtual platform. It has also multiplied the risk that IP, easily available on remote laptops, could be vulnerable.Public health officials have not offered specific timelines when things might return to "normal." Many companies noticed minimal disruption with remote working and this "new normal" may result in reducing their physical real estate footprint. The virus may go away someday in the near future, but the challenge of protecting IP in this Kim Jessum
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