Tech transfer, Open Innovation, IP and Academia
Making the case for Open Innovation
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Table of contents
Open innovation and open science
Arguments against Open Innovation
Responsibilities of sensoricans
Some thoughts on the approach - from Greg
Some Universities are more inclined to open - Concordia’s case
This document makes the case for Private, Public, People (or Crowd) partnerships. We often hear about industry and academia collaboration or Private Public partnerships. This type of relation, built to increase the transfer of information from academia to the private sector, is justified to stimulate economic development. New institutions have been created to nurture this relation, these are intermediary organizations, funded partially by the Government and partially by the private sector, putting together academic labs, companies and financiers.
We propose the addition of the crowd as a third pillar of innovation and technology transfer to the traditional Private-Public partnership. Traditional institutions can interface with the crowd through open science, open source development or through open innovation networks like Sensorica. OVN’s like Sensorica can play the role of a bridge for technology transfer, turning academic research into use and market (or exchange) value.
The OVN model thrives on open innovation. Secretive and/or protected innovation is incompatible with this model. This puts some constraints on our relations with academic institutions: all interactions must result in open innovation.
We believe that the OVN model is adding to the prosperity of the local economy. Furthermore, taking into consideration the present financial and economic uncertainties, we also believe that the OVN model, as part of the larger p2p movement presents itself as a viable alternative for the future. That is to say, we believe that open innovation processed by OVNs is very positive for the local communities within which these OVNs operate.
The problem is that we’re going against the credo that says that intellectual property is key to prosperity. In search for more revenue, Universities have decided to monetize the new knowledge that they create by encapsulating practical knowledge as intellectual property (IP) and selling it to the highest bidder. There are many philosophical and ethical issues related to this practice, but in terms of its economic effects we need to ask the question: who benefits? Is it the University? Is it the local communities who support the University? Is it those who buy this IP?
Those who buy the IP and exploit it for economic benefits are the real beneficiaries. But sometimes they are far removed from the community who invests in the technology in the first place. This is a problem! Many foreign companies come to Canada to do research and development, the initial and very high risk phases (proof-of-concept and prototyping), taking advantage of our R&D tax breaks and of our Universities for innovation. When the product reaches maturity and is ready for the market, we usually see these companies move to other countries (primarily the US), where they can get a better deal for manufacturing, market development, scaling, etc.
It is our opinion that in Canada, local communities who support Canadian Universities are the biggest losers.
What about Universities? It is now becoming more and more clear that selling IP is not a good business for them. The much promised knowledge economy hasn't materialized yet.
It is our conviction that Universities should practice open science, should open their technologies for the benefit of their local communities, in order to foster the sustainable development of their local economies, which is actually part of their mandate.
UQAM, for example, says that part of its mission is:
contribuer à l’innovation intellectuelle, scientifique, culturelle, technologique et sociale ainsi qu’à un développement socialement responsable;
What does UQAM and other universities mean when they talk about socially responsible development? What kind of activities fit in this definition? Are Universities doing enough?
SSHRC, the main government funding for the humanities in Canada, say that:
The work SSHRC supports encourages the deepest levels of inquiry. It spurs innovative researchers to learn from one another’s disciplines, delve into multiparty collaborations and achieve common goals for the betterment of Canadian society. Research outcomes are shared with communities, businesses and governments, who use this new knowledge to innovate and improve people’s lives.
http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/about-au_sujet/index-eng.aspx
The goal of this document is to make the case that open innovation is beneficial for local economies. We assume that all Sensorica affiliates are already convinced about that. The goal here is more pragmatic.
The concept of open innovation is still vague. See definition on p2p foundation. See definition on Wikipedia. See also page 66-70 of this doc.
Many organizations understand today the advantage of going open, but only very few have actually gone full open. How open should innovation be is context specific and depends on the innovation strategy of every organization. Some people still think that in order to maximize value extraction from the market one needs a monopoly, which can be achieved by controlling the IP behind the product. But if the product is a high tech one, becoming obsolete every 6 months to a year, IP protection cannot satisfy the monopoly requirement. Moreover, if by sharing innovation we innovate faster and penetrate or generate new markets, the loss of protection can be offset by the more rapid innovation. Most companies today operate with hybrid models, somewhere between open and closed innovation. Open source licenses are used on the open side, either restricting the right to commercialization or granting it to everyone. Hybrid licenses such as the peer production license[1] have also been proposed.
For the purpose of this initiative open innovation means that the University doesn’t take any action to protect the technology that would result from collaboration between some members of the institutions and Sensorica affiliates OR, if the University insists to protect such technology by patenting, it releases commercial rights to all Sensorica (active) affiliates non-exclusively.
NOTE: Instead of having a transactional relation Universities can join the OVN and partner with its affiliates for applying and commercializing a technology. In this case, the University becomes an affiliate of the OVN, which means that it accepts the contribution accounting system and has access to revenue generated from commercialization.
You can find our definition on our website.
Innovation is about applicable and useful technology. The term useful relates to a need and thus, to a market. Innovation relates to the economy. The term open innovation is used to describe a set of practices related to innovation (open access to participation, transparency, collaboration,...) and a set of rights and responsibilities related to the use of a technology.
The term open science is used to describe a new set of processes that go into increasing our knowledge as a part of reality. It is neutral, in the sense that it is not a utilitarian view of how science is or should advance, related to economic development. But open science and open innovation go hand in hand. Infact, an economy based on intellectual property is at odds with scientific endeavors, and we believe that pressures from the economic side have made science less and less open. An economy based on open innovation restores good relations between the entrepreneur-minded individual and the scientist.
Studies on similar dynamics of open innovation in the economy (i.e. not specifically with the term “open innovation”)
One economic/sociological study talks about similar dynamics, but not in the context of open innovation. Putnam (1993) argues that differences in income per capita in regions of Italy are matched by differences in societal structures: horizontal structures in the north versus hierarchical forms in the south. This would relate to one of the characteristics of open innovation.
Many contemporary sociologists talk about trends that would relate to open innovation (e.g. Giddens, 1991), but more on how these changes impact society on a broader scale (and they don’t focus on the economy). However, I find it interesting to point out an “old" view, way before the internet. Durkheim (1912), who although considered outdated in many ways, makes some links to economy to what he calls “collective effervescence.” In all brevity, he says that for a society to exist, people have to associate with one another. Much of social life, however, is spent by people being apart from one another, often in “smaller societies,” such as family and groups. But in historical intervals, people come together in great collective events, and that is when most important ideas, inventions, and art are created. He gives examples of the French Revolution, Renaissance, and Reformation. These are periods of massive collective creativity. According to his analysis, it is when people come together that the economy flourishes, because people are not concerned only for what is good for themselves individually.
Contact letter McGill IP policy
Collaboration on law and normative systems
First meeting with the CDEC Rosemont/Montreal
Expanding the network into academia presentation
reddit no IP list - http://www.reddit.com/r/noip/
websites that connect dark IP with entrepreneurs
found by Greg, see also Diigo with tag dark IP
http://www.easyaccessip.org.uk/
http://www.ibridgenetwork.org/
Open innovation in the news - list of articles from Berkeley
Designing for Emergence and Innovation - Redesigning Design
The love-in, The move toward open innovation is beginning to transform entire industries
Paper on Coopetition - by Soumaya
‘Dark Intellectual Property’: Why We Need a Kickstarter for Patents
Bessen, J. (2004). Holdup and licensing of cumulative innovations with private information. In Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2003.08.004
Boldrin, M., & Levine, D. K. (2002). The case against intellectual property. In Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.1257/000282802320189267
Bound, J., Cummins, C., Griliches, Z., Hall, B. H., & Jaffe, A. (1982). What does R&D and who patents? In NBER Working Paper Series (Working Paper No. 908). https://doi.org/10.3386/w0908
Érdi, P., Makovi, K., Somogyvári, Z., Strandburg, K., Tobochnik, J., & Zalányi, L. (2013). Prediction of Emerging Technologies Based on Analysis of the U.S. Patent Citation Network Department of Biophysics. Scientometrics, 95(1), 225–242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0796-4
Eurequa, D. E., Guellec, D., & Martinez, C. (2003). The economics of patents: from natural rights to policy instruments. Working Paper.
Frank, S. J. (2009). The Death of Business-Method Patents: From now on, you can get a U.S. patent only on a mousetrap–not on the idea of catching mice.
Grabowski, H. (2002). Patents and New Product Development. Working Paper.
Grabowski, H. (2002). Patents, Innovation, and Access to New Pharmaceuticals. Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Hall, B. H., Graham, S., Harhoff, D., & Mowery, D. C. (2003). Prospects for Improving U.S. Patent Quality via Postgrant Opposition. In Innovation Policy and the Economy (Vol. 4). https://doi.org/10.3386/w9731
Hall, B. H., & Ziedonis, R. H. (2007). An Empirical Analysis of Patent Litigation in the Semiconductor Industry. American Economic Association Annual Meeting, (January). Chicago.
Hall, B. H., Thoma, G., & Torrisi, S. (2007). The Market Value of Patents and R&D: Evidence From European Firms. In NBER Working Paper Series (Working Paper 13426). https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2007.26530853
Hall, B. H., & Lerner, J. (2010). The financing of R&D and innovation. In Handbook of the Economics of Innovation (Vol. 1, pp. 609–639). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-7218(10)01014-2
Hall, B. H., Helmersy, C., Rogersz, M., & Sena, V. (2013). The importance (or not) of patents to UK firms. Oxford Economic Papers, 65(3). https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpt012
Hall, B. H., Helmers, C., & von Graevenitz, G. (2015). Technology Entry in the Presence of Patent Thickets. NBER Working Paper 21455. https://doi.org/10.3386/w21455
Janis, M. D. . (2002). Patent Abolitionism. Manuscript. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Kanwar, S., & Evenson, R. E. (2001). Does Intellectual Property Protection Spur Technological Change? (Discussion Paper No. 831). New Haven.
Kemmerer, J. E., & Lu, J. (2012). Profitability and royalty rates across industries : some preliminary evidence.
Litan, R., & Singer, H. (n.d.). Unlocking Patents: Costs of Failure, Benefits of Success.
Miller, S. P., & Tabarrok, A. (2014). Ill-conceived, even if competently administered: Software patents, litigation, and innovation-A comment on Graham and Vishnubhakat. Econ Journal Watch, 11(1), 37–45.
Pakes, A., & Griliches, Z. (1980). Patents and R&D at the Firm Level: A First Look (Working Paper No. 561).
Sampat, B., & Williams, H. L. (2015). How do patents affect follow-on innovation? Evidence from the human Genome. Working Paper. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2
Tabarrok, A. (2002). Patent Theory versus Patent Law. Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy, 1(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.2202/1538-0645.1039
Montreal institutions
NOTE: these are Sensorica observers
From p2p foundation
MSU
Ohio State University
Michigan Tech
Célya Gruson-Daniel - studies open science, see article ask Tibi and Layne.
Institution | link, name, ... | notes |
Berkeley University, CA, USA | never contacted, needs some reading, curating, targeting | |
HEC, Montreal | proposed by Fernando NOTE by Tibi: see email from Fernando with more... | |
SAJE, Montreal | Hugo | See with Tibi |
McGill Montreal | some names | collected by Tibi in Contact letter McGill IP policy |
MNI | Alan Evans | See Tibi and Valentin |
General on the web | information node/community - more traditional sense of “open” | |
General Social Media |
| See with Michel B., Michael L. and Tibi |
Some time ago (...) Jurgen Voltaren (...) was doing a study on the regional effects of open source activities, looking at the broad field of regional innovation econometrics .. maybe he can
help
A potentially useful example is the Toronto-based Open Business Resource Center, which helps free software developers to become http://p2pfoundation.net/Fair_Use_in_the_U.S._Economy one of its expressions is the TIM Review .. OSBR in Toronto (now with TIM Review), talk to the chief editor, he may have some pointers, The Richard Florida school, though they don't distinguish between open and closed
See metric tags via http://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens/P2P-Metrics
even more in delicious/mbauwens at http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Accounting
combination tags could narrow references down .. for example, with P2P-Localization metrics on localization effects http://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens/P2P-Localization
Steven Johnson's where do good ideas come from, in particular his quadrant showing how 'non market collective innovation' is now the primary driver with a timeline showing its increasing importance ...
Johan Soderbergh uses 3d printing as example of how innovation is coming from open social networks ..
Links on p2p foundation
http://p2pfoundation.net/Product_Hacking using it, one could check where each of these projects has originated ..
http://p2pfoundation.net/Fair_Use_Economy ; http://p2pfoundation.net/Fair_Use_in_the_U.S._Economy
See also http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Commercialization - originated from Greg.
perhaps worth checking out: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/vtrc-opa040513.php
http://p2pfoundation.net/Open_Source_Commercialization
all of this and more from:
https://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens/Open-Source-Commercialization
https://delicious.com/mbauwens/Open-Source-Commercialization
IP makes knowledge proprietary. This means that it becomes controllable. This property is licensed or sold. In most cases it gets sold, which means that it is extracted from the local community that produced it. That has a negative consequence on the local community, which is that the IP cannot be exploited locally anymore, free of royalties. The whole economic potential of the IP will be exploited by the new owner, which can operate within other communities.
Usually, communities that invest in IP but don’t have the means to extract the full benefits sell it. This is the case of Canada, being close to an economic superpower, the US.
IP hinders communication, exchange of ideas.
1) Open Commercialization has more in common with traditional commercialization than you think. [...] A lot of what it means to commercialize (identifying markets, creating a market-ready product, interacting with users... etc) is the same in both cases and we also recognize both the immense value of that process, and that it is in no way easy!
2) Open Commercialization does not require that traditional commercialization disappear. A university could use open commercialization to bring technologies to market which are not appropriate for traditional commercialization. Tech Transfer managers frequently see perfectly good technologies "die on the vine" because the market is too small, it would be too hard to extract value in the market or enforce the patent, etc etc. So commercializing in an open way can add value to your tech portfolio by enabling you to have greater impact on otherwise low-performing assets.
3) Open Commercialization and citizen science are both highly dependent on community. Community is the ecosystem which creates value, which members of that community can access. Universities are expert at creating, maintaining, and promoting communities - it's pretty much exactly what a university is. This puts universities in a highly experienced position.
4) Successful example of open commercialization from a "peer" institution - usually no one wants to be first. I found that Arduino was a great example - it was very successful largely because it was open and created an effective user/creator community, and it came from the design institute in ivrea in torino - so it was in fact a university project. It also is a great example of open begetting open - many open science projects have used arduino, and it's good to reinforce the idea that openness spreads. My example was talking about arduino and then the cicada project as an open commercialization and citizen science project which were intertwined.
Another example (which is so big it's not good to give on its own) is that Tim Berner's Lee created the world wide web while at CERN (a publicly funded institution). Had CERN had policies in place the world would be completely different
Also, Robert shared this with me -
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/almost-no-one-buys-3d-printers/281297/
I think it's a great example of how innovation is prevented by patents. In these cases it's so frequently the case that the idea is enabled by other technology, not by innovative thought - and it's just a question of who jumps on the patent first.
Someone should take one of these patents and measure sales and price of the resulting product to see how much patents actually promote (or hinder) sales and distribution of new innovations.
That's a really great component of the argument.
(include here)
The open innovation game is not just about opening innovation and hoping for the best. It is complex and requires new processes and practices. The open innovation game creates a free environment in which everyone can put the innovation to good use and to extract some value from it. There are two important motivations behind the open game. One is to provide access to new practical knowledge to everyone on this planet, for the benefit of humanity. This is how science has evolved for centuries. The other one is to make sure that those who innovate get fairly rewarded for their contributions to humanity.
Sensorica must become an effective bridge of tech transfer. It must incorporate processes that facilitate transfer of know how from research labs to R&D labs and to manufacturing.
Sensorica will offer a comprehensive collaborative platform with a (multi type) contribution accounting system. The flow of knowledge and information will happen naturally on our infrastructure. Researchers can use it for collaboration among themselves, Sensorica affiliates can also use it for themselves, but the membranes of these two communities will merge to form a larger network in which information and knowledge will propagate freely. Moreover, physical proximity and the community life practices developed within Sensorica will facilitate transfer of know how.
The OVN must be able to detect good innovation and to form projects around it. Once discovered, these good ideas must be turned into new initiatives/projects. Everything must be in place to allow promising projects to gain traction.
Here's some next steps which I think would be productive:
1) Get to know our audience - people from tech transfer departments and from university admin - what are their goals in commercializing technology, what are the university / organizations broader goals, what motivates them, etc. This is the only way to pinpoint our arguments, which is key because if you don't engage them early, they'll quickly start ignoring you. See Leung and Stevens 2010 paper about motivations of tech transfer in universities. Are there more scholarly articles which can provide us with data on this?
2) Simplify, simplify, simplify. We don't need 1000 examples, we need 2 AMAZING examples. It's ok to have 1000 examples, but let's keep them in the footnotes - when we make the argument, we need the most bang for our rhetorical buck.
3) Understand, as completely and as detailed as possible, current and historical examples of open commercialization. Everything from how much were the development costs to product sales to income sources to man hours and timelines. University and tech transfer folks understand the steps in the process of traditional commercialization, but open commercialization remains a black box with lots of unanswered questions, like "well, how do they make money" and "what is an engaged user community and how much is it actually worth in terms of deferring development / marketing costs" etc. We have to be able to open up that black box and show it's possible and not scary :)
4) Tibi - yes great idea! - questions for the open community (I'm really sorry I missed this, like I said, we just had a baby :)... here's some I can think of:
(we'd need to define 'open technology' and 'open commercialization' here a bit, lots of people may have different ideas of what that means)
- Do you know of any universities which have institutional policies directly supporting open commercialization - if so, do you know of success stories from that university?
- Name the 2 examples of open technologies which have succeeded financially, from a product success standpoint (market penetration / distribution / impact) or both. If that technology began from a university, can you describe the benefits to the University itself?
- Would you or your organization be willing to provide us specific details about the progression of your open product/service, including how/where you got funding, timeline, development, costs, etc.
- ... I'd love to ask a question to identify more like-minded people at universities - is that a little too aggressive??
Hey... should I make this into a google form? Then perhaps we could distribute it around and get some feedback and contacts... ? Let me know if you think that's a good idea and I'll do it and share it with everyone here.
I'll email after this coming weekend two once I make more updates to the wiki.
from Yasir
Hello,
I met the Concordia team that deals with intellectual property yesterday. This is internal to Concordia and engages with the researchers before the researchers engage with Valeo. A few interesting things came up.
1) Researchers at Concordia are unionized and the union has a commercialization agreement in place across the university. It works like this:
- Researchers come to Concordia IP teams with an intent to commercialize (~25 requests per year)
- Concordia IP teams decide if they would like to pursue. If they don't, professor is free to do as they please and Concordia gets 5% of the commercialization activity
- If Concordia pursues with the technology, Valeo is involved
--Valeo finds and creates an agreement with the commercialization partner. Valeo keeps 5%, Concordia gets 95%. Out of this 95%, university keeps 50% and professor and their team get 50%
2) The IP team was not aware of open-source hardware but are fairly knowledgeable of Open-source software
3) Concordia would be open to non-intellectual property based commercialization provided that the agreements of commercialization as in step 1) are followed
4) The researcher has to request open-source to Concordia IP team at which point they would be willing to discuss further.
I spoke a bit about the lab-on-a-chip project and they are open to having a discussion. We can revisit this topic in a few weeks.
Back to school work,
Yasir
P.S. I have their contact information should we need it.
One aspect of the Sensorica approach that I feel might be strengthened when approaching institutional and corporate partners is an appreciation of their risks and liabilities (IP protection agreements, granting agencies expectations for deliverables that are protected "closed" data protection until peer reviewed publications are in press and intellectual property has been reserved in filed patents, university control of tech transfer, etc). Collaboration with universities with an easily adapted protocol to incorporate open networks to research facilities makes sense. They need these networks in order to drive innovation and new knowledge - budget cuts can only be remedied with innovation and investment in new technology. As universities have the resources it makes sense to approach them with a protocol that allows students (undergrads), interns, coop students, persons outside the university system to collaborate.
Research labs are bound by all sorts of agreements that protect the institution, staff, students, knowledge generated in their facilities as well as provincial health and safety, etc. If a protocol could be developed, perhaps with David's help (or one of his students) it may make partnerships easier to develop and gain access to equipment and facilities that is with mutual consent. As a former project manager for Genome Quebec I am sure that their research projects would request some form of protocol and agreement. At the same time all of the Genome Quebec platforms and technology were and are shared amongst the Genome Quebec community from the inception of these projects in 2002. The open culture is there but the restrictions of the institution and the granting agency may limit the manner in which OVN of researchers and scientists can gain access.
There are other federal grants available that can provide funding for personnel.
Q: how is open source innovation moving into academia?