Among the reasons for this lack of commitment cited by Wurtele are reticent senior management teams, a lack of understanding how to manage intellectual property transfers and a lack of support for open innovation in universities. Intellectually, they understand the benefits that open innovation could potentially bring, but they have trouble implementing it because of entrenched corporate cultures that emphasize protecting present investments and programs.

How should companies approach open innovation differently? Wurtele recommends moving beyond a few scattered experiments and taking more of a portfolio approach to it, containing challenges that have different degrees of difficulty. This will give them a fuller and more accurate picture of open innovation’s potential. Innovation practitioners also need to educate themselves on IP and technology transfer best practices.

Read full article » www.15inno.com/2012/09/10/scaredofoi/

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