U.S., June 3 -- Intellectual property is the lifeblood of innovation, but are manufacturing businesses doing enough to protect it?

Intellectual property (IP) plays an essential role in innovation in the manufacturing sector, with new ideas fuelling continued progress in many different areas of the economy. Information is a real commodity, of interest to competitors and third parties and has a high profile on a wide scale, particularly shown by recent interest around Huawei.

Some businesses believe that their IP isn't of much interest to anyone outside of their business, and that their competitors aren't a concern. However, what if the IP was simply harvested via a third-party, who picked it up as part of a wide scale security breach, an...