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Open Patenting. It Ranges from Licensing to Viral Patents, but Academia is Skeptical

, by Claudio Todesco
It is not easy to get the idea accepted and thus promote open innovation, as the work of Mariateresa Maggiolino and Maria Lilla' Montagnani explains

"We have open hardware to increase computational power. We have open libraries with research data repositories. We have open copyright policies. Why don't we open patents too?" This is the starting point for the work of Mariateresa Maggiolino and Maria Lillà Montagnani (Department of Legal Studies) on open innovation and open patenting. In Standardized terms and conditions for Open patenting (Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, 2013) they discuss the phenomenon and focus on the clauses that a standard license should contain, making a distinction between fenced and unfenced environments. "Fenced environments are like clubs where patented innovation is available only to those inside it. In an unfenced environment, everyone is welcome. This is a more interesting and promising environment".

Maggiolino and Montagnani propose a model for open patenting licenses in an unfenced environment as tools to promote innovation and to defend it against misappropriation. "Our patenting model operates in the spirit of open innovation and imposes a viral clause", Maggiolino says. "Users of an open patent license are required to maintain the same licensing conditions for the products developed by using that license. This a way to foster open innovation and let open patenting spread like a virus". In this scheme, open patenting is an online tool that works without the help of a centralized administrator. The clauses guarantee the free use of patents for research purposes, leaving the patentee free to decide whether to allow commercial exploitation of the granted patent and to charge royalties. The scheme is pretty novel and not everyone is welcoming it. "European academia is still rather skeptical", Maggiolino says.

Read more on this topic
Open Businesses Are Good for Business. And Innovation
Piacentini: Exporting the Model of Open Innovation into Public Administration
De Biase: After Ideology Dies, Theory Takes a Step Forward
Open Innovation? It Is a Question of Knowledge Governance
Innovation: the Conditions for Making an Open Relationship Work
To Develop a Product You Have to Look Inside

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