SMES, Open Innovation and IP Management: Advancing Global Development

[Excerpt] Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises (abbreviated herein henceforth as “SMEs”) are global drivers of technological innovation and economic development. Perhaps their importance has been somewhat eclipsed by the mega-multinational corporate entities. However, whereas the corporations might be conceptualized as towering sequoia trees, SMEs represent the deep, broad, fertile forest floor that nourishes, sustains and regenerates the global economic ecosystem. [. . .] Broadly recognized as engines of economic and global development, SMEs account for a substantial proportion of entrepreneurial activity in both industrialized and developing countries. Indeed, their role as dynamos for technological and economic progress in developing countries is critical and cannot be underemphasized. In industrialized countries, SMEs as major contributors to GDP and private sector employment, in more than a few countries contribute to as much as 60% of the national workforce. In a not unsubstantial portion of developing countries, SMEs are known to employ more than 70% of workforce. [. . .] As foci of technological creativity, SMEs propel long-term growth by facilitating innovation and its diffusion across local, national, regional and international economies. However, innovation immediately begets intellectual property (IP) and the concomitant urgent need to address intellectual property rights (IPR). Hence, to realize the maximum value of innovation, SMEs need to recognize, understand and manage IP in order to protect their IPR and thereby accelerate their innovations towards commercialization; this will, in turn, not only improve their business revenue flow, but ultimately raise the standard of living in their respective countries. IP is thus the essential link in the economic/technological development chain, between creativity/invention, on the one hand, and innovation/commercialization, on the other. SMEs therefore face a number of needs and challenges with respect to IP, IPR and management thereof. This will involve efficient utilization of assets, resources and capital, of which the human/intellectual aspect becomes increasingly important in the emerging global knowledge economy. SMEs in the future will need to recognize the reality and indeed necessity of economies of scale, i.e., the need to “merge” in virtual networks which whereas they might resemble larger firms, are not, i.e., are more like the jellyfish (loosely assemble, organized colony of single-cellular organisms: “SME networks”) and less like the whale (highly structured, systematized, hierarchical organism: the “corporate firm”). This will require sophisticated understanding how open innovation networks, IP management and global economic opportunities can be strategically merged to drive development

Data standardization

With data rapidly becoming the lifeblood of the global economy, the ability to improve its use significantly affects both social and private welfare. Data standardization is key to facilitating and improving the use of data when data portability and interoperability are needed. Absent data standardization, a “Tower of Babel” of different databases may be created, limiting synergetic knowledge production. Based on interviews with data scientists, this Article identifies three main technological obstacles to data portability and interoperability: metadata uncertainties, data transfer obstacles, and missing data. It then explains how data standardization can remove at least some of these obstacles and lead to smoother data flows and better machine learning. The Article then identifies and analyzes additional effects of data standardization. As shown, data standardization has the potential to support a competitive and distributed data collection ecosystem and lead to easier policing in cases where rights are infringed or unjustified harms are created by data-fed algorithms. At the same time, increasing the scale and scope of data analysis can create negative externalities in the form of better profiling, increased harms to privacy, and cybersecurity harms. Standardization also has implications for investment and innovation, especially if lock-in to an inefficient standard occurs. The Article then explores whether market-led standardization initiatives can be relied upon to increase welfare, and the role governmental-facilitated data standardization should play, if at all

Global Innovation Policy Index

Ranks fifty-five nations' strategies to boost innovation capacity: policies on trade, scientific research, information and communications technologies, tax, intellectual property, domestic competition, government procurement, and high-skill immigration

Economic Fundamentals Of the Knowledge Society

This article provides an introduction to fundamental issues in the development of new knowledge-based economies. After placing their emergence in historical perspective and proposing a theoretical framework that distinguishes knowledge from information, the authors characterize the specific nature of such economies. They go on to deal with some of the major issues concerning the new skills and abilities required for integration into the knowledge-based economy; the new geography that is taking shape (where physical distance ceases to be such an influential constraint); the conditions governing access to both information and knowledge, not least for developing countries; the uneven development of scientific, technological (including organizational) knowledge across different sectors of activity; problems concerning intellectual property rights and the privatization of knowledge; and the issues of trust, memory and the fragmentation of knowledge. This monograph is concerned with the nature of the process of macroeconomic growth that has characterized the U. S. experience, and manifested itself in the changing pace and sources of the continuing rise real output per capita over the course of the past two hundred years. A key observation that emerges from the long-term quantitative economic record is that the proximate sources of increases in real GDP per head in the century between 1889 and 1999 were quite different from those which obtained during the first hundred years of American national experience. Baldly put, the economy's ascent to a position of twentieth century global industrial leadership entailed a transition from growth based upon the interdependent development and extensive exploitation of its natural resources and the substitution of tangible capital for labor, towards a the maintenance of an productivity leadership through rising rates of intangible investment in the formation and exploitation of technological and organizational knowledge.

Intellectual Property Challenges in Replicating an American Graduate Program in Poland Experiences, Perspectives, and Lessons Learned

The article delineates some of the challenges in implementing of one of the global trends among universities - increased cooperation and collaboration to create and transfer intellectual property. Universities all over the world are increasing cooperation and collaboration in different fields. In addition to the traditional student and faculty exchanges, more and more universities are exploring deeper collaborations ranging from replication of degree programs to creation of dual degree programs. The article presents a case study of an extended collaboration to replicate a program founded by the University of Texas at Austin at the University of Lodz in Lodz, Poland. The transferred program is the year long executive MS in Science and Technology Commercialization (MSSTC) Program which focuses on wealth creation associated with intellectual property by transforming ideas based on science and technology into new products, new services, and new ventures to create jobs. The MSSTC program was transferred successfully from the University of Texas at Austin to the University of Lodz in Poland. However, one of the most significant challenges associated with the program replication across countries and cultures is how to best address a program’s intellectual property issues. This paper examines some of the intellectual property issues involved in transferring the MSSTC program like from a US to a Polish university. Some of the lessons learned re: intellectual property are delineated, examined, explored, and recommendations offered.Globalne trendy i międzynarodowy charakter komercjalizacji technologii sprawia, że pojawiły się globalne trendy do zacieśnienia współpracy pomiędzy uczelniami. Uniwersytety Trzeciego wieku oprócz misji edukacyjnej i naukowej włączają się w nurt przedsiębiorczości nazwanej akademickiej, współpracy z przemysłem i instytucjami rządowymi. Artykuł zwraca uwagę na istotną rolę transferu własności intelektualnej zawartej w programach edukacyjnych, szkoleniowych wymiany kadry i studentów. Współpraca rodzi wartość dodaną jako uzyskują uczelnie w postaci wspólnych programów lub transferu wiedzy z jednej uczelni do drugiej. Prezentowany artykuł zawiera również studium przypadku oparte na współpracy dwóch uczelni amerykańskiej i polskiej oraz transferze programu magisterskiego Komercjalizacji Nauki i Technologii z Austin do Łodzi. Udostępnienie wiedzy i najlepszych praktyk Instytutu IC2 w Austin obejmowało wyzwania związane z prawidłowym transferem własności intelektualnej wielu podmiotów jak wykładowców, uczelni, instytutu, doradców oraz innych osób pracujących przez wiele lat przy tworzeniu najlepszego w USA programu magisterskiego do zarządzania technologią. Autorzy zebrali najbardziej istotne problemy występujące podczas ich pracy w programie i przedstawili je w rozdziale Intellectual Property Challenges in Replicating an American Graduate Program in Poland Experiences, Perspectives, and Lessons Learned AbstractDruk materiałów sfinansowano ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego w ramach projektu „Kreator innowacyjności – wsparcie innowacyjnej przedsiębiorczości akademickiej”

Collaborative Decision-Making Processes for Cultural Heritage Enhancement: The Play ReCH Platform

These days, cultural heritage is one of the topics at the center of the urban sustainability agenda. Current economic and urbanization trends place significant pressure on urban resources, systems, and infrastructures and demand for novel approaches in governing, financing, and monitoring urban performances with particular attention to abandoned, unused, or underutilized cultural heritage, defined “waste heritage.” In this perspective, cities are laboratories where innovative and collaborative approaches can be tested, and culture-led processes can be implemented consistent with circular economy principles. In order to structure and activating collaborative decision-making processes for regeneration and adaptive transformation of cultural heritage, gamification assumes a central role. The chapter analyzes the interaction among gamification and collaborative decision-making processes relevant to support the enhancement of cultural heritage and describes the Play ReCH (Reuse Cultural Heritage) platform, winner of the 2019 Welfare Che Impresa call, activated with the purpose to promote a cultural creative enterprise and include cooperation and innovation in cultural heritage regeneration processes. Play ReCH allows rethinking the management model of cultural heritage reuse through gamification processes in combining technology and reality, involving city users within creative processes

Going Global: The Challenges for Knowledge-based Economies

The present volume aims to provide a comprehensive and systemic overview of the challenges that going global poses to knowledge based economies. Its focus is four-fold. 1) Firstly, it investigates why companies, especially high-tech firms, go global, i.e. which are the drivers that push companies to locate – R&D facilities in particular – elsewhere than in the home country. The analysis of the competitive advantages that enterprises seek in the host countries also includes the new techno-economic geography that emerges. Attention is devoted to the time frame of these phenomena and to features such as the development stage of the home and host country, the characteristics of both firms and industries, and the Product Life Cycle of the latter. 2) Secondly, it analyses the impact that the various corporate relocation phenomena might have on intellectual capital, innovative output and the labour market, and growth and development. (Re)locating in fact impacts on knowledge creation, exploitation – including the use of IPRs – , absorption, circulation and spillovers. In turn, these play a fundamental role in shaping the productivity, competitiveness, and ultimately growth and development of both enterprises and countries. 3) Thirdly, it addresses the questions of if and to what extent the current and prospective global dynamics call for new types of governance. Such a need arises if different policy domains have to converge towards common strategic welfare enhancing objectives. Attention is also devoted to the various policies put in place by small open economies that ‘go global’, such as Finland. 4) Fourthly, it addresses the sustainability aspects of going global by investigating how to better share the social, economical and ecological benefits and responsibilities arising from globalisation, technological change, and innovation. It analyses the impact that globalisation and the knowledge-based paradigm might have on both developed and developing countries.R&D, innovation, outsourcing, offshoring, knowledge spillovers

The Future Smart-City: An Analysis of the Effects of Global and Technological Innovation on the Evolution of Economic Systems

In 21st century, the current economy is rapidly utilizing globalization to create a vastly different future. With the advent of new technology merging with entrepreneurs who effectively utilize that technology, the economic model is changing. Faster, sleeker, more effective forms of communication and information transfer drive the process of globalization. Production for a single product can happen in multiple countries, companies can operate virtually 24/7 through call centers halfway around the globe, and preliminary smart cities are beginning to emerge to give us a glimpse of the future world. A new category of businesspersons called “prosumers” is emerging and has created a new sharing and soon-to-be self-service economic structure. Analysis of the two drivers of economic change—globalization and technological innovation—will reveal how close civilization is to the city of the future

Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: Executive Guide

Prepared by and for policy-makers, leaders of public sector research establishments, technology transfer professionals, licensing executives, and scientists, this online resource offers up-to-date information and strategies for utilizing the power of both intellectual property and the public domain. Emphasis is placed on advancing innovation in health and agriculture, though many of the principles outlined here are broadly applicable across technology fields. Eschewing ideological debates and general proclamations, the authors always keep their eye on the practical side of IP management. The site is based on a comprehensive Handbook and Executive Guide that provide substantive discussions and analysis of the opportunities awaiting anyone in the field who wants to put intellectual property to work. This multi-volume work contains 153 chapters on a full range of IP topics and over 50 case studies, composed by over 200 authors from North, South, East, and West. If you are a policymaker, a senior administrator, a technology transfer manager, or a scientist, we invite you to use the companion site guide available at http://www.iphandbook.org/index.html The site guide distills the key points of each IP topic covered by the Handbook into simple language and places it in the context of evolving best practices specific to your professional role within the overall picture of IP management