Book review: Intellectual Property for Managers: Law, Practice, and Corporate Strategy, Second Edition, Luiss University Press (2024), ISBN 979-12-5596-182-6

Massimiliano Granieri's Intellectual Property for Managers presents intellectual property (IP) as an integral component of managerial decision-making rather than as a specialised legal function activated only when protection or litigation becomes necessary. Written primarily for students and managers without formal legal training, the book develops an interdisciplinary framework in which law, economics, management, science and technology jointly shape the creation, protection and strategic use of intangible assets. Its central contribution is therefore one of IP literacy: managers are not expected to become patent attorneys, but to understand IP sufficiently well to identify risks and opportunities, communicate with specialists and integrate IP considerations into business decisions. The volume is organised in three parts. The first establishes the conceptual foundations of IP through law-and-economics, intangible assets, public domain, commons and anticommons. The second focuses primarily on trade secrets and patents, combining basic legal principles with managerial issues such as freedom to operate, secrecy measures, employee mobility, non-disclosure agreements, patentability, prosecution and claim interpretation. The third and most distinctive part connects IP generation, portfolio maintenance, protection decisions, due diligence, enforcement and strategic exploitation within a unified managerial process. Particularly relevant to World Patent Information is the chapter on patent information, which treats patent literature not only as a source for prior-art assessment but also as an instrument of competitive intelligence and strategic decision-making through patent landscapes, classifications, applicant analysis, geographical coverage, temporal trends and citation analysis. The review identifies the book's principal strengths as its interdisciplinary perspective, accessibility and ability to link legal rights with organisational processes and corporate strategy. The substantial treatment of trade secrets is also noteworthy, as is the risk-based framing of IP management and the emphasis on patent quality, due diligence and freedom to operate. At the same time, the breadth of the book necessarily limits the depth of some topics. Advanced patent analytics, modern search methodologies, valuation, licensing practice and portfolio analysis are only introduced, while some terminology and examples appear unevenly updated for a 2024 edition. These limitations are consistent with the author's stated objective of providing a primer rather than a specialist manual. Overall, the review concludes that Intellectual Property for Managers succeeds in showing where IP tools belong within the broader architecture of innovation management and corporate strategy. Compared with more operational patent-management handbooks, it offers less granular methodology but a broader conceptual framework. For students and managers, it provides an accessible entry point into IP; for patent-information specialists and technology-transfer professionals, it offers a concise framework for explaining to non-specialists why patents, trade secrets, freedom to operate, due diligence and patent information should be considered as interconnected elements of strategic management.