Technology Scouting: Going “Outside” for Rapid Innovation 

Presentations, Transcripts—Many top companies are moving to a more open form of technology and product development in which they leverage technical capabilities developed in other sectors or industries to address their own internal needs. Going outside can both speed up and improve technical development, free up scarce internal resources for other high-impact activities, and lead to greater innovation. The key is being open and knowing where to look, how to qualify, and how to apply new externally-developed technologies for rapid commercialization – at a profit to your firm. Rather than relying on ad hoc and sometimes haphazard approaches to technology sourcing, many firms are adopting formal Technology Scouting programs to provide a structured, focused approach to identifying and acquiring new technology. This presentation by Technology Scouting expert, Dr. Jay Paap, presents an overview of the major features, rationales and tips and techniques related to Technology Scouting. Click here to download the presentation slides and then download the text transcript of Dr. Paap’s talk below.
(24 pages)

CoDev 2008 Congress Looks to Open Innovation as an Engine of Turbo-Charged Growth 

Event Summaries—In January 2008, The Management Roundtable (MRT) and the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) held their seventh international CoDev (Co-development) Congress, in Scottsdale, AZ chaired by Cheryl Perkins, president and founder of Innovationedge and former Chief Innovation Officer for Kimberly-Clark. For attendees and speakers alike, the summit offered a rich opportunity to anticipate the future of co-development in light of lessons learned. In a pre-conference workshop, Henry Chesbrough, Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and Kevin Schwartz, principal consultant with PRTM, presented six key skills for successful open innovation. In the conference that followed, speakers from Kraft, Kodak Procter & Gamble, NanoFilm, Inc., and Hawker Beechcraft Corporation, among others, presented case studies many of which emphasized that open innovation is no longer an optional strategy – it is a necessity for growth and for corporate survival. The speakers also emphasized that open innovation is a culture that must be developed not only in the R&D function but throughout the enterprise.
(8 pages)

Intellectual Property Challenges in Co-Development Relationships 

Interviews, Methodologies & Best Practices—Co-development projects present a host of special management challenges. Among them the management of Intellectual Property (IP) is particularly difficult. In a 2006 presentation, Gene Slowinski of Rutgers University and Alliance Management Group and Kim Zerby, an attorney with The Procter and Gamble Company, shared their experience regarding the major challenges and pitfalls surrounding IP in co-development programs. Supplemented by a November 2007 interview with co-author Gene Slowinski, this article takes the reader through a proven model for Co-Development – Want, Find, Get and Manage® – and outlines the IP challenges and potential solutions at each stage. The article provides key IP-related questions that need to be resolved at each phase of a co-development project. It argues for a strong link between IP and business strategy, for developing an organized, visible and available IP portfolio, and for fostering close links between Legal and R&D professionals.
(5 pages)

Intellectual Property Protection and Management Issues in Open Innovation and Co-Invention Efforts 

Presentations—m>A Presentation by Dr. Paul B. Germeraad, President, Intellectual Assets, Inc.
In this presentation, Dr. Germeraad discusses Intellectual Property (IP) in light of the premise that open innovation will speed and enhance new business development efforts. He focuses on design principles for IP ownership, and on the issues surrounding the ownership of jointly developed IP in different regions of the world. Dr. Germeraad also discusses global IP protection and an approach to IP infringement from a business (as opposed to a legal) perspective. The presenter also discusses (1) how to determine and negotiate which IP rights will belong to which party in an open innovation environment; (2) how to manage which innovations should occur in which regions of the world to best control IP ownership; (3) how to use foreign R&D labs to advantageously conduct R&D, test market new ideas, and secure IP rights without undo interference by other IP holders; (4) how to assess the open innovation business risk associated with various IP landscapes. Examples from leading corporations will be used to present different approaches to IP.
(17 Pages)

Co-Development Conference Highlights Intellectual Property, Shows Open Innovation a Maturing Strategy 

Event Summaries—A January 2007 conference on Co-Development moved the conversation about collaborative product development a notch forward. The conference participants and presenters took for granted that the business case for CoDev had been made. The focus has turned toward leveraging open innovation models and managing intellectual property (IP) around a core business strategy. Keynote speaker Henry Chesbrough, as well as other speakers from IBM, Kraft, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Medtronics and others discussed such issues as the question of protecting and managing IP as a major building block of any open innovation opportunity; the growing range of open innovation options, various intellectual property strategies, and the business models that integrate both; developing a supplier capabilities matrix to help determine which suppliers showed greatest promise as co-development partners; forging an IP strategy to meet the challenge of creating a collaborative product based on customer experiences, and other issues around open innovation and IP. 
(5 pages)

Related links: Special Report on Open Innovation Practices; CoDev Conference 2008

Bridging Expectation and Reality When Co-Developing Products in China 

Interviews—An Interview with Alan Paau, Ph. D.
Dr. Paau is vice-chancellor for technology transfer and economic development at Cornell University and Executive Director of the Cornell Center for Technology, Enterprise and Commercialization. In this interview, he provides an overview of lessons learned from his experience in working with Chinese development partners to commercialize technology. Paau advises Western firms partnering with Chinese companies not to confine their interactions to the upper management team alone. He recommends creating a hands-on presence at every organizational level of the company with which you are working. He also suggests that the greater the degree of regulation to which an industry is subject, or the higher the initial set-up costs, the safer the collaboration is likely to be in terms of IP protection in China. Paau also emphasizes the advisability of registering contracts with China’s authorities.
(5 pages)

Merck’s Collaboration with WuXi PharmaTech, Shanghai  

Presentations—A presentation by David M. Stout, Ph.D., Director, Global Basic & Pre-clinical Sourcing, Merck Research Laboratories
The pharmaceutical industry is renowned for the complexity of its development process, its risky projects, and its low-yield product pipeline. With increasing pressures on the industry, many of the so-called “Big Pharma” firms have decided that they can’t afford not to outsource non-core activities. One example is Merck & Co., Inc., which has forged a mutually successful partnership with China-based WuXi PharmaTech, a Contract Research Organization with less than ten years in the field. This presentation details the development of Merck’s partnership with a supporting Chinese firm and how that relationship slowly evolved to greater degrees of trust and commitment. It first presents an overview of the drug discovery process and provides a rationale for outsourcing in general – and outsourcing to China in particular. The presentation discusses the business criteria used to assess partners and then recounts the case history of the projects Merck has engaged in with WuXi. Recently, these projects have included FTEs dedicated to Merck and the development of a site dedicated to Merck projects at WuXi’s Shanghai location.
(21 pages)

Open Innovation Networks: Creating and Managing an Ecosystem for Innovation – Audio Session Summary 

Event Summaries, Presentations, Transcripts—Related Links: Audio | Transcript (24 pages) | Slides (42 slides)

In this audio session, Mike Docherty, CEO of Venture2, provides an understanding of the role of innovation networks within open innovation. Docherty introduces a framework for creating and managing networks and offers insights on partnering for success. He defines five major types of innovation networks: peer-to-peer networks, supply-chain networks, internal networks, “feeder” networks (where a larger, centralized entity leverages external partners in a coordinated development effort) as well as less formal – but targeted – events and forums. He recommends designing networks with high-level strategic goals in mind and then balancing structure with the need to be flexible and adaptable, while allowing the networks to evolve over time. Open innovation, emphasizes Docherty, allows developers to look for intersections between unmet consumer needs, enabling technologies, and marketplace opportunities. Innovation networks are a way to increase the speed and frequency of identifying those intersections.
(12 pages)

Co-Development Across Cultures: A Process for Opportunity Identification and Associated Metrics 

Presentations—A Presentation by Masongo Moukwa, Vice President, Global Technology, Reichhold
This slide presentation gives an overview of how Reichhold, a supplier of a wide range of resins to the composite and coating industries, developed a process to identify and assess technologies and products to fill its pipeline of opportunities and bring them to commercialization. Reviewing its past experience of transferring technology and products from other organizations, Reichhold developed a suite of metrics to ensure that new opportunities were properly identified and screened and that new technologies and products were integrated within company capabilities. This presentation examined cases of technology transfer from Reichhold’s parent company and detailed the metrics deployed.
(29 pages)

Cisco’s Top-Six Checkpoints for Mutually-Profitable Partnerships 

Case Studies—Steve Steinhilber, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Cisco Systems
In this Management Roundtable audioconference in March 2004, Steve discusses Cisco’s processes for outsourcing and partnering to develop new products in a manner that ensures mutual gain.  Steve elaborates on the six “must-have” checkpoints that Cisco applies to both prospective and existing partnerships to ensure that development, go-to-market and delivery are mutually profitable. See "Related Links" for this item to download a transcript of the presentation.
(41 pages)