Bruce Berman is Managing Director of Brody Berman Associates, Inc., a management consulting and strategic communications firm that that helps to differentiate intellectual property rights, holders and strategies. Brody Berman supports IP transactions and disputes. It is best known for helping clients enhance value and manage risk. The firm draws upon an extensive network of business and media contacts in the U.S. and Europe.
Bruce has implemented marketing and business development programs on behalf of more than 200 IP portfolios, business and advisors. He has counseled many executives, intellectual property holders, investors and attorneys, and their clients. Brody Berman’s clients include public and private companies, service provides, private investment funds, family offices, creators and law firms. Prior to co-founding Brody Berman in 1988, he served as Vice President, Financial Relations at Ruder Finn, one of the largest international communications firms.
In 2016, he co-founded the Center for Intellectual Property Understanding, an independent non-profit that raises awareness about the impact of IP on people, business and society. CIPU provides outreach to improve IP literacy and promote sharing. It holds events, such as the annual IP Awareness Summit® and curates IPBasics.org and IdeasMatter.com, information portals. Bruce hosts, Understanding IP Matters (audio, and YouTube video), a podcast series that enables inventors, creators, entreprepreneurs and IP strategists to tell their IP story. UIPM has generated more than 15,000 downloads.
Bruce’s most recent book is The Intangible Investor (CloseUp Media). He also edited and contributed significantly to four others: From Assets to Profits, Making Innovation Pay – People Who Turn IP into Shareholder Value; From Ideas to Assets (all John Wiley & Sons), an acclaimed book about the business of intellectual property; and Hidden Value, published in London by Euromoney Institutional Investor. His books can be found here.
Ninety-Seven of his columns, The Intangible Investor, appeared in Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) from 2003 to 2019. Since then they have appeared in IPWatchdog. He has contributed to dozens of periodicals and books, including Nature Biotechnology, Forbes, WIPO Magazine, The National Law Journal and The New York Times. Bruce has been selected World Leading IP Strategist every year since its inception in 2009.
He has served as a resource on IP topics for many publications, including Institutional Investor Online, Buyouts, Asset Sales Report, Bondweek, Mergers & Acquisitions, IEEE Spectrum, Crain’s New York Business, Forbes, IP Law 360, Bloomberg News, Reuters, PR Week, EDN, National Underwriter, and U.S. News & World Report.
Bruce is or has been a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of IAM, the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame Academy and the Intangible Asset Finance Society and Intellectual Property Owners Association. He has served on the Executive Committee of the the U.S. IP Alliance, as co-chair of the Financial Markets committee of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) and as a mentor to students from Uganda and Keyna for LES’ graduate student business plan completion. Both students received the top cash award in 2017 and 2018.
Bruce has provided testimony as an expert witness in litigation involving misuse of marketing resources, and has spoken at more than 100 conferences, seminars and universities in the U.S., Europe and Asia. IP CloseUp, the popular blog that he publishes, has generated more than 460,000 visits and is read in the U.S., UK, China, and more than 70 other countries.
Bruce received a Masters’ degree in film scholarship from Columbia University, where he taught for four years while completing Ph.D. course and comprehensive requirements (ABD). He received his Bachelor of Arts in literature and journalism with honors from The City College of New York.