Kelvin W. Willoughby

Intellectual Property Management and Technological Entrepreneurship

This paper investigates the distinctive technology protection strategies of entrepreneurial technology firms. In contrast with much popular opinion, it is reported that intellectual property features more prominently in the business of small entrepreneurial firms than it does in the business of large, established mature firms. The intellectual property portfolios of technology firms of all sizes and ages exhibit a rich array of instruments in addition to patents for protecting technology, including trade secrets, trademarks and copyright, together with licenses to externally sourced technology. The intellectual property profiles of technology firms appear to be influenced by their context, organizational profiles and corporate goals and by the character of their technology.

Transfer or generation? Biotechnology and local-industry development

This paper examines the local (regional) economic-development aspects of the emerging biotechnology industry and considers the relative importance of generationoriented policies over transfer-oriented policies. Results from a study of the biotechnology industry in California are used to support the analysis. Basically, it was found that there is a complex industrial ecology associated with biotechnology. The firms choose to locate neither randomly nor entirely in order to be close to similar firms. Rather, it appears that they emerge in locations that have a nurturing biotechnology milieu. The presence of a critical biotechnology human-resource base creates its own dynamic, which diffuses into the surrounding medical, electronic, and other related industries. Thus, what develops is a local biotechnology-generation complex. Technology transfers role seems to be subsidiary to the process of technology generation in the area.

What impact does intellectual property have on the business performance of technology firms

This paper reports the results of an original empirical study of the relationship between intellectual property and the financial performance of technology firms in the bioscience-technology industries. The study found a statistically significant positive relationship between the firms’ investments in intellectual property and their performance. The performance measure was based upon revenue-growth data collected from each firm, and the categories of intellectual property analysed included patents, trade secrets, trademarks, copyright and licenses to externally sourced technology. This study also found that the financial benefits of accumulating a strong intellectual property portfolio were enjoyed by technology firms regardless of whether they were strategically oriented towards R&D or strategically oriented towards the commercial production of products and services.

Co-creation – child, sibling or adopted cousin of open innovation?

ABSTRACT As the concept of co-creation has evolved in the innovation management literature its meaning has become ambiguous and the boundaries between it and the concept of open innovation have become opaque. The purpose of this paper is to more clearly define the concept of co-creation and to articulate how it differs from and relates to the concept of open innovation. Scholars are divided as to whether co-creation is a subsidiary concept of open innovation, a surrogate concept that is essentially indistinguishable from open innovation, or a separate concept that developed independently but was subsequently intermingled and interfused with open innovation. This paper addresses this scholarly confusion by conducting a systematic two-stage review of the innovation management literature, commencing with of a ‘broad brush’ bibliometric analysis, focused on the origins and evolution of co-creation and open innovation, followed by a ‘deep dive’ literature review in which the two concepts were rigorously compared. By proposing a cogent definition and taxonomy of co-creation, and thereby distinguishing it from open innovation, the paper goes beyond the current state of the literature and provides a more robust basis for future research.

A knowledge-based system for assessing and managing intellectual property managerial risks for small-and-medium sized technological enterprises

Managing intellectual property (IP) is a critical issue that almost no company can avoid. This is particularly true for small and medium sized technological enterprises (SMTEs). Due to their limited resources, SMTEs typically do not devote sufficient effort to managing intellectual property (IP) risks. This may lead to serious financial and other losses for such companies. In this paper, a knowledge-based intellectual property managerial risk system (KIPMRS) has been developed to assess and manage IP managerial risk for SMTEs. The KIPMRS is a new method for managing intellectual property risk, which incorporates both rule-based reasoning (RBR) and case-based reasoning (CBR). These two features enable the achievement of continuous improvement of the system. Two real life SMTEs participated in the trial implementation of the KIPMRS described here. The SMTEs each used the system to help determine their IP managerial risks and hence to improve their practice for better managing their IP.

Strategies for Solving the Problems of Backlog and Unreliable Examination Quality in the Global Patent System

This paper outlines a proposed approach to analyzing the likely causes-of and potential solutions-to two related problems in the administration of the patent system worldwide: the global backlog (or deadlock) in processing patent applications, currently estimated to be at least several million patents currently in the pipeline; and, inconsistent or unreliable quality in the decision-making of patent offices regarding the granting of patents. It does so by presenting a systematic and quantitative approach to analyzing an array of plausible or salient explanations for the two problems and to analyzing an array of alternative solutions to those same problems. The approach advocated herein additionally presents a dynamic approach to analysis of solutions by taking in to account the interdependencies of the alternative strategies. The practical application of the approach is illustrated by employing it in an expert thought experiment. The experiment demonstrates how adopting a systematic and quantitative analytical approach along the lines followed here may reveal a more powerful set of strategy scenarios (each consisting of an array of dynamically related sub-strategies) than has previously emerged in the literature for addressing the twin problems of backlog and unreliable examination quality in the global patent system.