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Intellectual Property: An Open Source Model for Idle IP

Intellectual property (IP) is a broad category that captures copyrights, trade secrets, and patents.
Many institutions manage IP generated by their faculty and staff. Usually, as part of an employment agreement, researchers are required to disclose inventions to the IP officer before public disclosure. Public disclosure usually takes the form of a journal publication.

There is an estimated $4 trillion in idle intellectual property around the world. This dormant and orphan IP is ideal for open sourcing.

“Open source” is a model used by coders and the software industry whereby:

"The open-source model is a decentralized software-development model that encourages open collaboration. A main principle of open-source software development is peer production, with products such as source code, blueprints, and documentation freely available to the public."[1]
If one is a scientist or inventor, why is open sourcing idle IP a good idea?

Enhancing International Scientific Collaboration

Most researchers recognize that collaborating with other researchers brings a number of benefits.
For example, many funders are now requiring a collaboration plan in the application to Request for Proposals (RFPs).

International collaboration makes inclusion and diversity more likely. Also, it is more likely interdisciplinary ideas may influence research.

Further, eventually it may be the case that citations ratings may include whether the journal article included international collaborations.

By breaking down silos of research, science can unify cultures and bring a sense of understanding that could reduce ethnocentrism. Scientists can lead their less educated populations to an appreciation of other cultures.

Some incentives for scientists to provide IP:

• Gives increased visibility to employers for employment and consulting opportunities; more dynamic than LinkedIn
• Increased visibility to other researchers for strengthening professional reputation similar to Github
• To gain co-authorships from other scientists moving the dormant/orphan IP forward
• Allows them the option of collaboration
• Gain sponsored research funding
• Access grant funding
• Help with gaining grants from funders that require open science and/or open access (Gates Foundation, Wellcome, etc.)
• Gain honoraria and speaking engagements from collaborators and industry
• Maintain knowledge leadership around the IP
• Proliferate their personally developed science
• Publish to preprint server where publishers compete for manuscripts
• Gain Helix tokens for contributing IP
Intellectual Property Office

Some IP offices push back. Why? Mostly because they think it is a lot of work to open-up idle IP. This is not the case. And quizzically, some even want to charge a licensing fee for opening up abandoned, dormant, and orphan IP. It is important to note that Knowbella Tech does not pass on a cost to the researchers, and as such, cannot pay a licensing fee to the IP office.

Instead, the IP office gains significant benefits:

• Knowbella Tech freely promotes the out-licensing portfolio
• May help increase the number of licenses by advertising and out-licensing the idle IP
• Bring sponsored research attention to the institution’s researchers
• Stimulates international collaboration between institutions
• Provides support to applications for increased funding
• Brings grant funding attention to the institution’s researchers
• Become a knowledge center using dashboard data
• Gain sponsored research
• In the case of public institutions and government, the orphan IP is not providing a return to the taxpayers
• Gain or maintain positive morale of the researcher, particularly when the IP is not moved to prosecution and is abandoned
• Brand enhancement
• Doing a social good

All of those benefits can be quantitatively worth value to the IP office if the office is inclined to convert them.

Idle IP can comprise dormant and orphan patents that are issued but not being maintained. In such a condition, a non-exclusive license template can be used to further make value of the IP. The license is extremely flexible to modification so long as the Creative Commons 4.0 (CC 4.0) and Copyleft aspects of the license are maintained.

In the case where the patents are abandoned, these do not need to be licensed, as they are freely open to the public. No researcher wants to work on free IP to then only have a cease-and-desist notice because not all the IP was licensed. We have a policy of seeking a non-exclusive license because the adopting researchers need comfort that trade-secret knowledge is not lingering behind the abandoned IP. Further, they need assurance that a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filing isn’t lingering and forgotten by the IP office to only create a problem later. However, like everything in the open world, flexibility can be had in the license, including no license. The license provides assurance to the researchers using the technology that there are no encumbrances on the IP and there is a complete freedom of use.

Whether one is a scientist wanting to contribute IP, or an IP office seeking to generate value from idle IP, contributing to open science and open access environments creates a pioneering impact.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_model, accessed 19 June 2018.


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