Consider a patent operations team where one experienced professional has handled a particular portfolio for years. When that person leaves, the replacement may inherit the files, procedures and systems, but not necessarily the reasoning behind them.

That is where the real exposure begins
Research from APQC in 2025 found that only 30% of organisations capture knowledge from departing experts most of the time or always, while 41% rarely or never do. Person-to-person transfer remains the most common approach, used by 74% of organisations, while 62% document knowledge manually. Only 21% reported using AI to mine conversations
The problem is particularly relevant to IP because so much expertise is contextual

A written procedure can explain what to do An experienced professional often knows why, when and what to watch for. WIPO makes a similar point in its work on technology transfer. It notes that high employee turnover and staffing shortages can be problematic because technology transfer depends heavily on relationships with researchers and industry stakeholders

The same principle applies to many corporate IP functions

If critical knowledge sits with one person, that person has effectively become a single point of capability failure. The answer is not simply to ask experienced employees to create more documents before they leave

Organisations need a more deliberate capability model
  • Identify critical expertise.
  • Capture the reasoning behind it.
  • Transfer it through structured practice.
  • Validate that others can perform the work independently
This is also where AI can become useful, but carefully. APQC found that 66% of organisations planned to upskill existing staff as part of workforce transitions, while 52% planned to use change-management strategies.

For IP teams, the objective should be bigger than replacing one employee. It should be building a team where expertise is shared rather than concentrated, documented rather than remembered, and continuously developed rather than acquired only when someone resigns

Because when your most experienced IP professional leaves, the question is not simply-
“Who will replace them?”
The more important question is:
“What capability leaves with them?”

Sources
APQC, The Great Retirement: Knowledge Loss, AI and the Workforce Shift, 2025. APQC
WIPO, Human Capital at the Service of Technology Transfer, current resource, accessed 2026