ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.32 — Intellectual property rights

What this control requires

The organization shall implement appropriate procedures to protect intellectual property rights.

In plain English

The organization shall implement appropriate procedures to protect intellectual property rights. In practice, this means you can prove you policy management-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

ISO 27001 certification depends on showing each Annex A control is either implemented or explicitly justified for exclusion in the Statement of Applicability (SoA). Certification bodies sample controls during surveillance audits, and a missing SoA entry — or implementation that doesn't match the SoA wording — is a finding.

What an auditor looks for

An ISO 27001 lead auditor looks for: (1) an SoA entry covering the control with justification, (2) a documented procedure or policy implementing it, (3) records that prove the procedure runs (logs, tickets, training records) and (4) management-review evidence that effectiveness is monitored.

Within Organizational controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.5.32) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

• Policy. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Intellectual. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Protect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: management, rights, property rights, implement.

Evidence to collect

• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Intellectual property rights.

Common pitfalls

• Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC2.3 — External Communication on Internal Control Matters
• HIPAA (45 CFR Part 164) 164.312(a)(1) — Access Control
• ISO/IEC 42001:2023 A.2.2 — Policies for the responsible development or use of AI systems
• GDPR Article 1 — Subject-matter and objectives
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.13.15 — Session Authenticity

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

• Annex A A.5.5 — Contact with authorities
• Annex A A.5.13 — Labelling of information
• Annex A A.5.30 — ICT readiness for business continuity
• Annex A A.5.37 — Documented operating procedures
• Annex A A.5.1 — Policies for information security
• Annex A A.5.3 — Segregation of duties

References

• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
• Catalogue identifier: Annex A A.5.32

Topics: governance riskpolicy management