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Open Innovation Insights: 5 Biggest IP Legal Mistakes Small Companies Make When Working with Large Companies

Open Innovation guru Stefan Lindegaard recently asked me what the biggest IP legal mistakes small companies make when they are working with large companies.   This is a subject very near and dear to my heart, as I am currently "moonlighting" as GC of a start up energy company that is moving toward licensing our technology into large companies.  Also, as a senior IP lawyer at a multi-national consumer products company, I was on the other side of such deals on more occasions than I can count.  Prior to that, I was a law firm partner representing large and small corporations in patents and licensing issues, and in doing so, I now realize that I killed more deals than I ever facilitated, a situation that is more typical of law firm lawyers than it should be, unfortunately. In view of this multi-faceted experience, I present this list of the 5

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Companies Adopting Open Innovation Must Incorporate Patent Information at the Front End

(Editorial note:  This is a repost from this blog over 2 years ago, but the content is more relevant than ever.  On January 20, 2010, I am participating in a Yet2.com webinar with Ben DuPont and Jason Lye where we will be sharing our thoughts about marketing technology to "non-traditional" technology buyers, many of whom come to the table because they are adopting Open Innovation into their product and technology development processes.  I thought this "classic" post would be a good overview for anyone of my viewpoint for those who find my blog as a result of this event.  For regular readers, well, I hope you enjoy this too.  I will post a link to the recorded webinar when it is available. ) 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

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Success at Open Innovation Requires Finding the Right Partners: Here’s How to Improve Your Success Rates

With more companies building open innovation into their product development platforms, there would appear to be increasing opportunities for companies and independent IP owners to sell or license their technology.  In my many conversations with corporate innovation professionals, I find that that the desire to in-source externally developed products and technology may be strong, but few know how to go about finding and acquiring what their companies need.  As I have written about before, developing fruitful open innovation relationships is very much like dating:  you may want to do so, but unless you know where to show up, and how to initiate conversation, chances are you will remain single for a long time unless you engage a matchmaker. Well, I guess you could be your own "matchmaker" and search for potential partners.  This is easier today than it used to be because many corporations have idea submission portals and a

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How Patent Whitespace Analysis Can Set a Company Up for Sustainable Failure

I spent a few days last week at the Innovation Cubed Conference in Orlando.  While there, I heard two instances of use of a term that I absolutely hate, at least when it is used by innovation professionals to define in some manner the innovation processes of their respective organizations.   This word is:

PATENT WHITESPACE ANALYSIS

Not only do I hate this phrase, I think that companies that utilize patent (or IP) whitespace analysis to define their product and technology development pathways are quite possibly setting themselves up for failure.  And, it's bad enough that a single innovation project might fail as a result of the faulty data inputs that can occur from relying on whitespace assessments, but I think that most corporate processes incorporating patent whitespace analysis are based upon faulty methodology, thus setting the organization up for sustainable failure. For the uninitiated, when applied to the patent world,

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2 Ways to Reduce Open Innovation Risk: Convert the Naysayers and Bring on the Seasoned Veterans

Open Innovation is risky.  It's like letting a stranger in your house to see what valuables are there for the taking, and letting them keep the key to your secrets even after you finish working with them.  For some, this perception of risk is enough to stop any attempts of Open Innovation in its tracks.  Other corporations respond to the risk by "lawyering up," which, at a minimum, markedly increases the costs of proceeding or, at worst, causes the relationship to break down before any collaboration can occur.  And I, as IP counsel to a number of corporations in my prior life, must admit to being responsible for shutting down Open Innovation due to my role as IP risk the person responsible for mitigating my clients' IP risk. After leaving the Friendly Confines of defined roles and responsibilities set out in my corporate and law firm life where it was clear

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Patent Information is a Necessary Calibration Tool: How the Pilgrims’ Journey is a Metaphor for the Innovation Process

Regular readers of this blog will recognize that I am a strong advocate of the use of patent information in the front end of innovation processes.  (More on this here, here and here.)  Relatively few innovation professionals actually do so, however, likely because it can be difficult for innovators to understand how to change the longstanding paradigm where lawyers are perceived to be the people who "put the 'no' in innovation."  Put simply, I find that innovation professionals prefer to leave anything smelling of legal advice out of the front end of their processes because they think they will not be able to do their jobs if the lawyers show up to their meetings. Of course, it makes little sense for innovation professionals to make significant business decisions involving new products or technology without also knowing whether they will be able to own the fruits of their innovations

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Must Read Post on Innovation from Blogging Innovation: Steve Shapiro of Innocentive on Three Distinctions of Innovation

(Happy belated Holidays to readers of the IP Asset Maximizer blog.  The dearth of postings on this blog lately is due not only to my hectic holiday schedule, but also the death of my aged Grandfather.  Thanks everyone for your patience--we'll be up and running on a regular schedule after the New Year.) I just came across this post from the Blogging Innovation blog, hosted by Braden Kelley.  (Anyone interested in innovation MUST subscribe to Braden's blog.)  The post, entitled "Part 1:  Three Innovation Distinctions" is by Steve Shapiro of Innocentive, distills what innovation is down to words which are placed in counterbalance with the standard model of product and technology development.  Specifically, Steve contends that innovation is about:

  1. Challenges not Ideas
  2. Process not Events
  3. Diversity not Homogeneity
As I posted in a comment, I believe that this is a remarkably simple way to highlight the

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Success in Innovation Requires IP Counseling on the Front End: Here’s How to Make it Happen

The 2009 Open Innovation Summit was held in Orlando two weeks ago.  The event was attended by corporate practitioners of Open Innovation, including people from P&G, GSK Consumer, Cisco, Whirlpool, J&J, HP (here are Phil McKinney's slides), Clorox, and many others.  Leading consultants in Open Innovation also attended, including Stefan Lindegaard of Leadership+ Innovation, Braden Kelley of Blogging Innovation and Robert Brands of Innovation Coach.  A number of vendors of services were there, too.  I thought this was a great knowledge share event, and a must do for folks wanting to learn more about Open Innovation.  Another Summit is planned for August 201o in Chicago. At the Summit, we spent much of the 3 days hearing how the attending companies, many of which include those in the Fortune 100, view Open Innovation as a critical aspect of sustainable growth and profits.  We also heard about

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The Coming Explosion of the Patent Monetization Market: Brought to You by Open Innovation and What Needs to Happen in Order to Speed Up the Process

This week, I got a call out of the blue from a very senior business development person at a Fortune 10 technology company "wanting to know more" about patent licensing and monetization.  This was a bit strange:  his company has literally dozens of patent professionals on staff, files 100's of patents a year and, as I found out, has 35 or so business people working on patent  licensing and monetization efforts for the organization.  So, why would he (let's call him "Bob") need to talk to me these topics?  Certainly, there is a veritable army of highly-paid smart people to answer IP and patent questions at his beck and call, and I was interested in finding out what Bob sought to find out from me that he could not get from his own people. I was not surprised to find out that Bob did not want to learn more about buying and selling

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“It’s Not You It’s Them” or “They’re Just Not into You”: Why Being an Independent Inventor is Like Dating

The view that a good idea will result in a windfall for an independent inventor seems to be embedded in the fabric of US culture--perhaps it's because the patent system dates from our earliest days.  Indeed, a surprisingly large number of people think that getting a patent will result in a large company paying them huge sums of money for the ability to introduce a product covered by that patent.  This belief serves to motivate countless numbers of inventors to spend $1000's on patent protection, as well as years of hopeful waiting for their patent to exit the Patent Office.  Few ever see their product make it to the marketplace, however. As an attorney at a prestigious IP law firm, I really gave little thought to what my clients would do with their idea once I succeeded in obtaining a patent for them.   My job was to help my clients convince the Patent Office that their