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Thursday, October 11, 2007The Economist on Open Innovation.In the latest issue of The Economist there is an interesting article on  Open Innovation. It brings a concise review of some more or less well-known pros and cons thereof, citing some of the success stories like Procter&Gamble or IBM as well as critics like Mr David Gann and Mr Linus Dahlander, both of London's Imperial College, who argue that firms have always been open to some degree and that the benefits differ depending on their line of business. Those using older technologies, for instance, may benefit less. The costs of open innovation, in management distraction or lost intellectual property rights, are not nearly as well studied as its putative benefits, they say. Nevertheless, what can be observed today is that there is an increasing number of companies demonstrating that a centrally planned approach is giving way to some more open, even somewhat anarchic, new model of innovation. And, for example, Mr Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research recently stated, on the High Level Conference on the European Research Area 'The Future of Science & Technology in Europe', Lisbon (Portugal), October 08, 2007:"[...] Increasingly, businesses thrive in an environment of 'open innovation', where connections with each other and with public research institutions are vital to explore ideas and develop products more effectively than would be the case alone. [...]"What does this mean for more formalised ways of dealing with intellectual property, in particular patents? The Economist concludes - in particular in view of branches where Open Innovation plays a role: "[...] For one thing, patents are becoming much less important nowadays than brands and the speed at which products can be got to market. It is true that some of the rising stars in developing economies are beginning to take out more patents, but many of their innovations are still kept quiet as trade secrets. So fluid are their markets, and so weak the historical patent-protection in them, that bosses often prefer to keep things in the dark - and come up with the next innovation as necessary to stay ahead of the competition.Then a final conclusion is offered: "[...] For a business that uses open and networked innovation, it matters less where ideas are invented. Managers need to focus on extracting value from ideas, wherever they come from. Unfortunately government planners, who are often obsessed with national innovation policies and the need to create clusters like Silicon Valley, have not learnt this lesson. History also shows that countries that come up with new technologies are often not the ones that commercialise or popularise those inventions. Richard Halkett, of Nesta, a British research body devoted to innovation policy, jokes that the right policy for governments should be 'never invented here'. He may be right. [...]"Perhaps patent people might wish to think about that. More related articles in this week's issue:
 Open Innovation
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