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Published by NuBooks, an imprint of Oak Tree Press, 19 Rutland Street, Cork, Ireland

www.oaktreepress.com

ISBN: 978-1-84621-128-7 (PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-84621-129-4 (ePub)
ISBN: 978-1-84621-130-0 (Kindle)

The information contained in this publication is intended for guideline purposes only and does not represent legal advice. Readers should always seek independent legal and/or other professional advice specific to their own requirements before taking any action based on the information provided herein.

Extracted from INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: FROM CREATION TO COMMERCIALISATION – A Practical Guide for Innovators & Researchers, by Dr. John P. Mc Manus, published by Oak Tree Press.

1: INTRODUCTION

Intellectual property (IP) is an intellectual asset that underpins the transformation of an innovation into a tangible asset, a product, process or service that someone else can benefit from and is willing to pay for.

Figure 1 illustrates the creative, innovative and entrepreneurial process where the innovator devises a concept of how to overcome a problem. At the initial stages, he is merely dealing with an idea, and as others also are entitled to use their intellect to formulate ideas, he cannot expect to protect and own the idea exclusively. So until a workable solution to the problem actually has been devised by proving the concept with some experimentation, demonstration of a prototype, or illustration of a design, the original idea has no real value.

Figure 1: The Creative, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Process

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However, as soon as the solution to the problem can be presented, then something innovative has been created and one is entitled then to claim ownership of that creation in accordance with the laws provided for the protection of IP. At that point, an intellectual asset has been created, but until it is converted into a tangible asset such as a product, a process or a service, it is difficult to establish the real commercial value of the innovation.

This transformation of the intellectual asset into a tangible asset typically is brought about by the ‘entrepreneur’, who straddles the worlds of innovative solutions and commercial opportunities and who thrives on transferring innovative technology to a commercial environment (‘technology transfer’). Thus, the entrepreneur quickly grasps the commercial relevance of the original concept and creates some definitive value and economic benefit by exploiting the innovation in the marketplace.

Innovation is really the result of a creative approach to problem-solving (the origin of IP), whereas entrepreneurship, while it does not necessarily exclude this process, is more focused on identifying various applications of the innovation and finding ways to exploit it commercially. Combining both activities might then give rise to a ‘commercialisation process’ represented schematically in Figure 2, beginning with the origin of the IP and progressing to its exploitation in a commercial setting.

Figure 2: The Commercialisation Process

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While this is one possible sequence of events for commercialisation of a technology, it will become evident during the evaluation of the commercial opportunities that, although there is an underlying chronological order to the process, there are times when it is necessary to step back and to jump forward in the process in order to make informed decisions and to evaluate risks at any point, so that the exploitation strategy continues to make commercial sense. Nonetheless, Figure 2 explains some of the main steps in the process.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are rights governed by statute that provide individuals with a right to prevent others from exploiting or abusing their intellectual creations. The more common forms of IPR are patents, trade marks, copyright, design rights, confidential information and know-how, and all of these play an important role in the innovation process. Some of these rights require registration, while others are simply acquired at the point of creation without the need for a formal registration process.

These rights extend to the protection of inventions, creative works, expressions and brands. They provide the owner with the ability to stop others from exploiting or abusing them and, by giving a legal standing to these rights, it allows them to be traded as assets, just as one does in buying, selling or leasing any tangible asset.

Each of the various forms of IP is specific in the scope of protection it provides to owners and beneficiaries and the steps necessary to acquire and exploit them may be different depending on the nature of the specific creation.

Other very important, but specialised, forms of IPR include plant variety rights (also plant breeders’ rights) used in the plant breeding industry, database rights for the ICT, Internet and publishing sectors and chip topography rights (also mask work rights) in the electronics and computer chip manufacturing industries. However, these will not be covered in this ebook, which is focused on the main forms of IP that most researchers and inventors need to be familiar with.