Comments on: “Open Innovation” isn’t Open

By: Calling all readers: - Open innovation and crowdsourcing

Calling all readers: - Open innovation and crowdsourcing — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:33:51 +0000

[…] the past, I have made a fairly simple assessment of patents, and their value. I want to revisit this conversation, because I have continued to think about […]

By: Carl

Carl — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:38:05 +0000

ps: I agree with Philippe that “pure open innovation” as emile defines it is not Chesbrough’s definition.

By: Carl

Carl — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 12:32:19 +0000

It’s been a while since the last reply but the issue is still relevant right:

I don’t think patents are wrong at all. I think they are used wrongly. In the words of Charles Leedbeater (watch him on TED.com):
“Corporations use patents to keep innovation from happening”

This is illustrated by Chesbrough’s (inventor “open innovation”) example that 80% of patents within companies remain unused!

I think his book (indeed called Open Innovation) comes up with some quite good solutions to the problems you are discussing here.

Most promising solution in my eyes: licensing of patents. What the creative commons license does for content could be done with better licenses for patents. That could allow more people to use patents and inventors/innovators to earn back their investments.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:12:03 +0000

I think the question of “who will pay” is an interesting one, but it’s a question which seems less intractable if we rethink the business model. Say for instance, that innovation, driven by consumer need, pushed pharma companies to develop vaccines rather than drug treatments? This seems like the kind of innovation that would have to come from outside the industry, but one which consumers would happily pay for. The financing for the R&D would still come from the pharma company, but the innovation would come in the form of the brand directives as well as the user research.

By: Josh Milane

Josh Milane — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:45:56 +0000

Who will pay for it all?

http://mittechnical.com/BOSTON-SEO-WORDPRESS/

By: emile

emile — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:30:52 +0000

Better yet, like iTunes & musicians/ Lulu & writers

By: emile

emile — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:39:56 +0000

Think of it like music…artists & music labels…researchers & pharma

By: Philippe

Philippe — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:41:26 +0000

Who will pay the small start-ups if their drug recipe is available for free to everyone? I'm just raising some questions to clear everything out. I guess that would be the government?

Edit: I've found an interesting read about alternatives to pharmaceutical patents.

By: emile

emile — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:26:40 +0000

Every other industry is able to do fine without patent/copyright protection.

Lets take the film industry, which arguably is just as IP related as a pharma company. They had their biggest summer in history, because they are not looking at the film so much as IP content but as an experience with improved film quality, sound systems, and stadium seating. Wal-Mart, the largest employer in the US, is a B2B & B2C company that thrives without patent protection. The airline industry also doesn’t have patent protection. No other industry has so much protection as drugs and content. Mickey Mouse is the reason the patent has been drawn out in the first place. Longevity postpones change and innovation.

So what would happen to the drug companies? Instead of drug companies doing the R&D, that would fall more to university labs and small startups. The big guys would become drug producers because of their infrastructure and use licensing deals for the drug recipes.

Opponents of true Open Innovation argue that the patent system protects a costly process which is essential. Those are the same people that would rather us take a drug now, rather than try to innovate towards the better drugs/content of the future.

Emile

By: Philippe

Philippe — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:48:30 +0000

Emile, you are raising some interesting points here. However, do you think pharmaceutical companies could survive if there was no patent protection at all? I agree that current patenting is excessive, but I have doubts regarding the sustainability of a completely patent-less system. Both examples - Google and Facebook - concern online B2C applications. I doubt that the same logic can be applied to industrial B2B companies for example. Open Innovation as defined by Henry Chesbrough is not ‘open’ in the sense of open source. In contrast with the closed innovation approach, the innovation process is ‘open’ to cooperation with suppliers, competitors, universities, research institutes…and costumers. As such, I see it as a first step in opening up traditional innovation processes in large, established companies. At this moment, only few companies really succeed in successfully adopting such an approach. Those leading innovators will probably start exploring next steps, moving towards a more open model as you describe it. The reality is however that most companies are still struggling with the first step.

In the coming weeks, I hope to have a chat with Wim Vanhaverbeke, co-author of the 2006 book on Open Innovation. I will certainly address these issues during the interview.