Professor Joel West discusses the contours of "open innovation."

The longer explanation of open innovation-

Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. [This paradigm] assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their technology.

Firms that embrace open innovation employ markets rather than hierarchies to obtain and commercialize innovations.

posted by Noel Le @ 9:45 PM | Academia , Patents

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The IPI recently released a piracy study, which was criticized on TLF and TechDirt . I could not help but find these attacks rather odd.

The TLF writer, a free culture/FOSS fanatic, wants to do away with IPRs because he does not believe commercial incentives are necessary for innovation and feels a natural right to tinker with others' software. In the current market where the success of FOSS is marked by news of IPOs and market share, the TLF writer does not even know whats good for the proletariat revolution. The Tech Dirt critic, a marketing intelligence consultant who wants firms to use their new products/services as advertisements to sell t-shirts, would do away with IPRs so he can get more marketing clients. While marketing is important, it is not a substitute for innovation.

Thus, you have two opposing views, one anti-commercial and one pro-commercial, attempting to downplay intellectual property rights and piracy enforcement. If one wanted to witness the madness of crowds, here it is.

Update- Mr. Masnick from Tech Dirt commented to this post, and made some good points that deserve highlighting.

On the independence of Masnick's business and IP views- "...my positions on IP have nothing to do with our corporate efforts. We don't do any work in the IP space at all. It's a personal interest, not a professional one."

OK, thats reasonable, but without Masnick emphasizing this point, it would be otherwise difficult to discern.

Continue reading The Madness of Crowds . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 10:21 AM | Free Culture Movement

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Jason Lee Miller from webpronews.com reports on rumors of a Google phone.

And Google's prepared to invest up to $8 billion in the project. Or hundreds of millions.

FOSS is good for incremental innovation and little else. For long term, pioneering innovation, the technology sector is little different from other industries. Formal organizational and capital structures are needed, as well as intellectual property policies that help firms appropriate their investments.

posted by Noel Le @ 10:14 AM | Free Culture Movement

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IPI has released a study on the economic costs of piracy. These studies often use some controversial assumptions, but my understanding is that this particular study used more conservative methodology than some of the industry studies and it is worth looking at. I'll also try to track substantive critiques and responses, as they come in.

Continue reading IPI Price of Piracy Study . . .

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 3:10 PM | Economics, Game Theory & Public Choice

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Anja Schmiele and Wolfgang Sofka have released a paper on the importance of intellectual property rights in globalized R&D- Internationalizing R&D Co-Opetition: Dress for the Dance With the Devil, Center for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 07-045 (2007).

Competitors can be valuable sources and partners for innovation activities. Against the background of international expansion of firms and increased international competition, the R&D collaborations with international competitors (international co-opetition) is becoming an increasingly interesting way to gain access to well guarded knowledge from abroad. However, to be able to benefit from these paradox alliances, a certain level of international co-opetition readiness is required. On the one hand, this readiness is important to protect the companies' intellectual property that should not be leaked to competitors. On the other hand, the firm has to be able to absorb and utilize the knowledge and capabilities of the collaborating competitor. Hence, we envision co-opetition as a balancing act between appropriability practices and absorptive capacities in a cross-border context. We test these dual hypotheses for a broad sample of roughly 1,000 innovative firms in the German manufacturing sector. We find that co-opetition with international competitors requires a shift in appropriability practices from informal methods (secrecy, lead time) towards formal ones (like patents and copyrights).

posted by Noel Le @ 12:34 PM | Academia , International

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WHO is conducting a public inquiry into Innovation, IP, and Health. Submissions may be made between the first and fifteenth of November. For information, see
http://www.who.int/phi/public_hearings/second/submission_section1/en/index.html

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 3:58 PM | International , Pharma

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Video shots of the IP panels from Aspen are now up. See John Duffy and panelists on patent reform & property rights, and Solveig Singleton and panelists on the theme of "Let's make a deal: Getting content and tech to the table."

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 2:59 PM | Aspen

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DRM Watch reports on the latest developments, with watermarking ramping up and Universal going DRM Free. Walmart is also to go DRM free.

Continue reading More DRM Free, More Watermarking--for Music . . .

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 8:19 AM | DRM & Watermarks, etc. , Media: Video, Music...

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Stanley Watt has a new working paper on IPRs and foreign investment- Firm Heterogeneity and Weak Intellectual Property Rights, (July 2007). IMF Working Paper No. 07/161 Available at SSRN.

In weak IPR environments, the imitation of proprietary technology by domestic firms has become a deterrent for foreign investment. Different multinationals may view this deterrent differently. This paper develops a model where firms with more technology are less likely to invest in weak IPR environments. If imitation is costly, the model predicts that multinationals with the lowest level and highest level of technology will invest in weak IPR environments, and multinationals with a moderate level of technology will invest only in strong IPR environments. Empirical analysis with firm level data is consistent with this non-monotonicity result.

The question of strengthening IPRs is not a matter of why, but of when. Nations with stronger IPR policies experience greater economic growth and industrialization. Economies that fail to adopt adequate IPR policies cannot become fully integrated into the global economy.

posted by Noel Le @ 12:03 PM | Academia , International

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This Google vs. Microsoft rivalry is a great past-time for industry observers. Contrary to over-zealous regulators and consumer advocates, its healthy for competitors to clobber one another as they vie for what political philosophers have termed wealth (market competition) - power (prodding regulatory action) - virtue (open source citizenship). So, who am I cheering on? -well, the firm that takes intellectual property rights more seriously.

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