Idea Lawyer Blog

Patenting and Open Source Platform

Silicon Valley nonprofit Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF) provides an early glimpse of next-generation institutional innovation (BusinessWeek.com, 11/15/07) as it emerges on the edge of medical research and drug discovery. As its name suggests, MRF has a very specific target—to mobilize and focus research on a particular biological process, myelin repair.
Open Source Platform for Top Level Health Research

Patenting worked better in open-source platform:

A key institutional innovation of the MRF was to develop a way for participants to file for patent protection more rapidly while still sharing their discoveries traditionally via publication in peer-reviewed journals. Without adequate patent protection, the intellectual property generated from MRF's research would have little appeal to biopharmaceutical companies that will have to invest significant amounts of their own money to commercialize products. At one level, the MRF has created an open-source platform engaging peers from diverse institutions while finding a robust way to protect intellectual property.

And, on the more general topic of innovation:

Innovation is needed within companies, to be sure. But today's most powerful and exciting forms of innovation are taking place across company boundaries. Think of them as institutional innovations—the changes companies make to redefine roles and relationships across independent entities to deliver more value to the marketplace and to society. Institutional innovation transcends what an individual inventor or even an innovative company can do. Innovation is a decidedly social process encompassing diverse individuals, corporations, communities, networks, and regions.

Rather than taking the four walls of the enterprise as a given, today's most promising institutional innovations seek better ways of connecting talent wherever it resides and building relationships that foster and focus learning.