Intellectual Property (IP) embedded in it—are intangible yet highly valuable company resources. In fact, IP is on its way to becoming the ultimate asset of every organization that develops, manufactures and sells software and computer-integrated equipment or systems.

Disassembling and reverse engineering a company's software, and the theft of its IP, is more hazardous to the organization than the theft of any other physical asset. Software and IP theft has the ability to not only impact an organization's credibility—the leakage of professional know-how, expertise, trade secrets and algorithms could also give competitors a dominant edge. In a world in which competitive advantage is gained through technological breakthrough, protecting IP becomes crucial to every organization.

Intellectual Property—which ranges from ideas, inventions, technologies, and patented, trademarked or copyrighted work and products—can account for as much as 80 percent of a company's total market value. Secrets and IP are considered financial assets in today's business climate, with corporations and shareholders recognizing the long-term value of such assets. Therefore, threats to IP such as knowledge seepage, forgery, patent infringement and license violation create a real concern.

This article discusses the means available today for software and system vendors to protect their IP and software assets and eliminate the threats associated with software and IP theft.

Legal steps are insufficient protection
From a legal standpoint, there are four major IP categories—patents, trademarks, copyright and trade secrets. IP that is registered with state and federal agencies in one of those categories is protected by law, and if infringed upon or abused, the violators can be prosecuted. However, IP can also be something broader and less tangible than these four protected classes.

It can be software source and binary code; software data; analysis procedures; mathematical calculations and algorithms; intelligence of how certain equipment functions; the logic of how data received from equipment is employed; and so on.