The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed on July 2002 and many public companies in the US have been implementing compliance procedures since then.

Unlike other business standards, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires a more detailed disclosure in its filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on everything that might affect a company’s business and financial performance.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that public companies use well established "disclosure controls and procedures" for all intellectual property (IP) assets so this vital information is first presented to the management of that company well before it’s revealed to the SEC. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act also requires these procedures to be evaluated quarterly to ensure that outdated and ineffective procedures are removed and new ones implemented for better efficiency.

At the moment the Sarbanes Oxley Act does not actually define the steps a public company should specifically take in order to ensure complete compliance with the Act. As a result most public companies are usually left in a bit of a quandary.

A big hurdle for companies is to fully inventory their Intellectual Property Assets (IP assets). Intellectual Property rights in themselves are a quagmire of regulations and laws and since the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires all IP assets to be help accountable to the SEC this usually causes a big problem. Going further, it is not often an easy matter to determine exactly how the I.P. assets of a company are affecting its financial performance. This involves an internal audit and information gathering process of a company and can prove to be time consuming and financially unviable until the procedure becomes well established and is a matter of routine.

The next step is to determine the value of each IP asset and finding out exactly what the nature of this asset is with regard to the company's financial performance. Since Sarbanes-Oxley compliance requires a clear insight into the financial workings of a public company this becomes a complicated issue. That’s because the value of an asset here is not simply monetary, yet using good Sarbanes Oxley software can help manage and audit this necessary procedure.

Since IP asset value is lost or gained based on the intellectual property rights obtained for any given product the value of an IP asset it is easier to explain to the SEC how in compliance with Sarbanes Oxley the company has more or less valued that asset.

The management's next job, to ease the ongoing implementation and compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, is to make sure that there are procedures in place that automatically protect their IP assets. To ensure ongoing Sarbanes Oxley compliance it is essential to conduct employee training starting from the top and trickling downwards with reinforcement at every step of the way. It is important that actions taken on these procedures and the reports generated are move upwards so that they can reach the appropriate division heads and ultimately the CEOs and board of directors.

Management will have to think of new ways and methods to make this happen because such broad and overall changes are not easy to implement when the established culture is so contrary to what is now being expected.

Since the scandals of previous public companies have resulted in the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Act demands a clearer look into a public company's finances. This involves more honesty at each step, involving everything, that would affect a company's financial performance, for better or for worse.