The bank of IP

Have you ever wondered how many good ideas don’t end up being turned into products or services because the people who come up with the idea just can’t make it happen? What happens to that IP? The person, or people behind it, don’t get any value out of it and the opportunity for someone else to create value may be lost. So what would happen if the idea there was an IP “bank.” a place innovators could log ideas, knowing they had legal protection for a set time, but other people could look at them, offer suggestions to develop the idea or even take it and turn it into a product or services with all parties sharing in the benefits?

This was just one of the suggestions that came out of the final workshop in the Unlocking Knowledge Transfer Beacon Project in Oxford today. The idea came out of a discussion about companies, particularly SMEs wanting to protect ideas but at the same time wanting to share the idea with other people who may have a valuable contribution to make.

It was one of a host of ideas that prompted a lively discussion.

Led by Prospect, the workshop brought together people from a wide range of businesses and academia to share their thoughts on how KT can be used to drive value for creative businesses.

The spread of people taking part produced a spread of ideas and suggestions around a number of scenarios. Prospect will now take all the material from the workshop to feed into the final report.

One thing that was clear however was that everyone felt KT offered a powerful tool for creative businesses. The next stage is to see how KT can be harnessed over the next five to seven years and what needs to be done to make it happen.

The scenarios report and baseline report are available on our web site where you can spark off discussions or share your experiences.

The final report will be published next month.