Many people assume that corporations will readily consider good ideas from external sources, presumably because from the outside it makes sense to do so. That is, why should a corporation spend the time and money to create something from scratch if someone else has invented a product or technology that is a good fit and can be acquired at a reasonable cost? Against this assumption, countless numbers of inventors have expended considerable time, money and hopes on patenting their inventions and submitting them to corporations for review.
The sad truth is that most of the money and efforts of these hopeful inventors are wasted. Few corporations today have policies that make it possible for their employees to gather unsolicited ideas from outside of their existing employee or supplier base. Ideas sent to the corporation by outside inventors rarely get reviewed for merit by the relevant business teams. Rather, after the inventor submitting the idea is
Reality Check for Inventors: Most Corporations Will Not Give Your Idea a First Look. Here’s Some Reasons Why.
Patent Attorneys Can Create Value-Added Services for Their Clients by Assisting with Open Innovation Efforts
As someone who assists corporations and entrepreneurs in monetizing their patents, I am continuously on the lookout for potential technology buyers. To this end, I subscribe to a number of services that provide "wish-lists" of technology that others are seeking to acquire. The most notable of these are Innocentive.com and Yet2.com. Recently, I have seen a number of technologies on each of these websites that are possibly relevant to patents that I have obtained for clients over the last several years. While this could be a coincidence, I also think it could be a signal that more companies are dipping their toes into the Open Innovation space, as opposed to relying solely on internally developed products or technologies. Patent attorneys seeking to improve the value they provide to clients would be well-served regularly reviewing the listings on these databases and spreading the word to their firm
Companies Adopting Open Innovation Methodologies Must Incorporate Patent Information for Maximum Value Creation
Open Innovation is unquestionably becoming a "hot" area of focus for U.S. companies, especially in the current economic climate in which businesses are more than ever focused on smarter ways of doing business. And, why wouldn't Open Innovation be an intriguing business model when companies can fill their product and technology pipelines for significantly lower cost and with more variability of ideas than typically is possible from their own R&D infrastructures? As a result, more and more business leaders are today viewing Open Innovation as a necessary direction in which to move their company's innovation efforts. A fundamental premise of Open Innovation is that good ideas can come from anywhere, even when a company operates in a very specialized core business. Moreover, innovations that come from outside of one's core business, such as in packaging or transportation, are better left to those who specialize in those areas. Perhaps more controversial
Patent Monetization Can be a New Source of Revenue for Your Company: Make Sure You Know the Critical Steps for Success
As corporate revenues continue decreasing as a result of consumer and corporation belt-tightening, many businesses now seek to extract revenue from previously untapped areas. One such source experiencing increasing interest is patent monetization, whereby a business licenses or sells its unused or under-utilized patent assets to generate a new revenue stream. At the surface, patent monetization would effectively appear to be a "no brainer" for business. That is, if one owns an asset that holds little internal value, but to which a third party would ascribe considerable value, why wouldn't a company move forward with selling that asset? In truth, however, few organizations possess the knowledge base required to succesfully execute on a patent monetization plan. This failure results not because patent monetization requires a complex set of skills; rather, the difficulty typically lies with the organization's lack of familiarity with the process of patent monetization. A successful patent monetization process
How to Prevent IP Ownership Issues When A Corporate Strategic Alliance, Joint Venture or Open Innovation Project Fails
Technology-focused collaborations form a foundation of today's corporate planning strategies. Such collaborations can be in the form of strategic alliances, joint ventures, open innovation or other legal structures. Regardless of how the participants characterize and legally structure such collaborations, the most common motivation for forming such alliances is to pool technology and R & D resources. When technology and R & D is involved, it must follow that IP ownership issues should loom large in the planning stage of the collaboration. However, my experience shows that the parties rarely give appropriate consideration to IP ownership in the agreements that are supposed to fully set out the rights and responsibilities of the parties. I can say with authority that IP issues are not usually given proper consideration in collaborative agreements because my expertise in this area results primarily from helping clients after their collaborations