July is National Inventor's Month in the USA; Growing Paradigm of Open Innovation

What do sports drinks, recombinant DNA, search engines, the PSA test, and nicotine patches have in common?

Each of these product breakthroughs were initially developed outside of their corporate labs, at universities or independent labs, and then transformed into household names by some of the world’s leading companies. But what about the other half of the equation—getting products out of research and development phases and to the market? Where do companies such as Kraft Foods, P&G  Nokia Seimans go to find solutions to some of their largest challenges? During national inventor’s month, it is especially important to recognize that these companies look beyond their own lab walls, and reach out to the world for solutions to get products to market faster, less expensively, and more innovatively.

More and more of the innovation, research and development needed to keep companies on the cutting-edge of their industries is being developed outside of the traditional R&D organization, in academic and external laboratories. Scientists and business executives have embraced the concept of “open innovation” – the paradigm that companies should both externally source and out-license their intellectual property, even with competitors –to bring consumers the best products imaginable and accelerate corporate growth.

With more than seven hundred federally funded research institutions such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, the USDA, and the National Institute of Health, in the US and the Federal NRC labs in Canada and thousands colleges, universities, and independent labs both within the U.S. Canada and around the world, vital new research and intellectual property is discovered and perfected every day.

This intellectual property (I.P) should be mined more agressively by SME's and corporations. Why ? see success chart to the left.

Source: Wire services

© 2005-2008 Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant, Keynote Speaker and Lecturer on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy

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According to a recent S&P/Business Week study (June 2008), the world’s most innovative companies outperform the S&P 500 and the S&P Global 100:

Source: S&P/Business Week Global Innovation Index –June 2008