According to some, the digital era is synonymous with a paradigm shift: yesterday, innovation rhyme with protection, today innovation would sound with permanent improvement. The frenzy of innovation would decide with an obsolete idea: why protect its innovation, the future would be sharing and brotherly love between competitors. Intellectual property law would, in short, be reduced to nothing.
The idea, as attractive as it is, overlooks several key points: the first is that innovation must necessarily be coupled with intellectual property law. The second is that sharing innovation is in no way contradictory to this legal protection. Protection is dead! Long live protection!
Innovation and Intellectual Property: Disenchantment?
Is the intellectual property an obstacle to innovation? Many practitioners and authors point out those companies in the digital age no longer protect, but use innovation and constantly improve it. However, does this mean that, because they are constantly innovating, the latter must no longer protect? Indeed, if we focus on the subject of patent filing alone, it is necessary to specify that the decrease in filings is not the consequence of the frenzied improvement in innovation. On the contrary. First of all, public accessibility to the complete description of the invention is problematic for any inventor. Next, patent filing results in protection in the territory in which it is filed. The world is watching you … and can freely exploit innovation in other countries!
Innovation and intellectual property: unity is strength
Would the idea of a lack of protection come from the multiplicity of exchanges within our interconnected societies? Thus, “open innovation” would be the antipodes of all legal protections.
What is called “open innovation”, a real disruptive system is traditionally presented as a movement contrary to the intellectual property system. On the one hand, operating a monopoly. On the other, open production of knowledge. It is with the emergence of digital technology that the problem has revealed other facets: to remain competitive, companies opt for this path of innovation.
Intellectual property is not opposed to sharing
In all cases, many authors and practitioners rightly point out that intellectual property is not the opposite of sharing, “collective work” or “collaborative”. Indeed, it is even conducive to sharing technology. Finally, it is interesting to note that even outside the open innovation hypothesis, creation can, in certain cases, be freely accessible and protected. You have to think about the basic tools of the internet.
Innovation and intellectual property: the compromise What if the right of previous personal possession was the solution to sharing innovation? This not very well-known right allows, in many countries paralyze the infringement action brought by the patentee or his assigns. To facilitate the recognition of this right on the probationary field, new legal services are deployed based on a standardized electronic signature and certified time-stamping as proposed by the site of InventHelp. This site allows you to immediately protect an innovation (or creation) by providing legal proof of integrity and priority, in complete confidentiality, and at low cost.