Presentation 080211

PhD Defense
11 February 2008
Arnaud GASNIER
Assistant Professor, TBM, TUD
Assistant Director, PLT, TNO
Research hosted at Delft University with support of
the Research Fund of the European Patent Organization
Patent analytics using Aureka with courtesy of Thomson Scientific
Alarming specter
(“Serpent de mer”)
• Patenting growth records broken every year
• Not only by multinationals
• Limited output (value extracted)
• How to measure and improve performance
2
Research framework
• Hypothesis: the Patenting Paradox
• Precept: gaming can help firms also in the patent field
• Objectives
• Describe concepts: patent management, performance
• Using patent information to illustrate current practices
• Design tools: models, indicators, dashboards, interventions
• Explain and validate hypotheses and tools with social science techniques
• Make recommendations for the firms
3
Main challenge: multi-disciplinary study
IP law
Micro-economics
Social sciences
Interventions
Organization learning
Performance
reporting
4
6 steps to solve the Paradox
Explain its causes
4
Design a solution
Measure effectiveness
Describe the Paradox
3
5
6
2
Measure performance
1
Explain patent management
5
What is “patent management”?
1
In the study, a new generic model: RMBV
A
P
Aligned
Profit
B
V
Commodity
IP holding
Defensive
B
R
V
M
Group
4 business models
C
D
Building
Research
Valorizing
Manufacturing
B
R
M
Factory
B
R
V
Research institute
6
Model: research institute e.g. university
• Originally, public funds
C
B
R
• More and more contract research
V
Total US RTO
gross licensing income
(US$ billion)
• Patent strategy: Commodity-type
• Patents for new collaborations and spin-offs
Examples
• US Universities: UCLA, MIT, Stanford
• Research organizations: Fraunhofer
• 3,500+ active patents
• 450+ new inventions protected per year
• self-finance with licensing (MPEG-2, MP3)
• 86 spin-offs created since 1999
Source: AUTM
• 90 patent professionals
7
What is “performance” in general?
2
•
“Performance” = ratio between inputs and (often financial) outputs
•
Recourse to frameworks. Designed with 3 components:
1. Direct measures: here, Number of inventions (PD#); Licensing income
2. Indicators to compare: here, normalized by R&D budget (R&D€)
3. Dashboards to analyze and help managers navigate
•
Here, based on the model RMBV
Building
PD#
LicInc
Valorizing
R&D€
Research
Manufacturing
8
Patent management dynamics:
the invisible learning curve
Normalized
extracted value
Columbia
95-05
Down-sizing
High outputs
MIT
97-05
Valorize
more
average
UCLA
94-05
Source: Gasnier (2008)
Patenting
more
average
Fraunhofer
94-03
Normalized
patenting effort
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3
What is the Patenting Paradox?
• 1st observation:
• Patenting growth records: +500% during the 90’s
• But limited value extracted: on average 30% (EC survey)
• 2nd observation (survey among UK SMEs):
• 55% aware that patents are “important” for their businesses
• but only 14% are taking measures
• Phenomenon named here “Patenting Paradox”
• More patents do not imply more value
High awareness
?
Little or no action
10
Survey among 1,100 patent users
• Carried out online
• In April-May 2006
• Target group of 8,228 patent users
• managers, researchers, and attorneys
• based mainly in Europe
• involved in various industries
• High response rate: 13%
11
Main result of the survey (1):
Do patent users think the paradox actually exists?
• To the statement:
“A firm may own many patents
while poorly performing at
creating value from them”
• More than 80% of the
respondents (strongly) agree.
Source: Gasnier (2008)
12
4
Causes of the Paradox
• One economic concept perfectly fits
Awareness
Attention
Action
• “Attention”
• Principal link between cognition and motivation
• Based on the physiological fact that the human mind is very limited
• Today
• Scarce and shrinking resource
• Becomes a dynamic economic driver (“attention economy”)
13
How to measure attention
• Not directly but through “manifestations”
• Recourse to statistical analysis
5 manifestations of attention
• Have their own patent department with professional staff
• Maintain patents as a priority even under constraints
• Communicate on the patent department’s mission and processes
• Train employees on how to use patents
• Coordinate research, business and financial information
14
Main results of the survey (2):
proving the origins of the paradox
Awareness
Perception
Ideal
attention
Ideal
action
Actual
attention
Actual
action
Knowledge
Scale:
Very low low
neutral
high very high
Actual-ideal gap = 55%
15
5
Gaming to help improve management
• Design solutions to remedy the paradox in the firms
• Use recent techniques: one of the most popular is gaming
In the study:
• 1 new game has been designed: Patentopolis
• 3 solutions (different target groups and formats)
• “Light” (3 h) for awareness
• “Mild” (5 days) for collaboration
• “Heavy” (1 day) for strategy development
16
A simulated environment: description
Initial scenario
• 5 firms (O,B,Y,G,R) compete in a “global economy”.
• Global economy = 20 markets defined by:
• 5 products (MP3, GPS, PDA, DVD, PC)
• 4 regions (North, East, South, West)
• For each market
• One firm can acquire a factory and produce.
• The same firm or another one can acquire the patent.
Objective of playing a game: Own the most valuable firm
• By acquiring and exploiting factories and/or patents
Components
• One board with a case-by-case path
• Tokens (teams, factories, patents)
• Indicators, fees & costs
17
Description of a simulation
First, make decisions
• A game = succession of 7-8 rounds
• A round = the following 3-step sequence
1. Each team is moved on the board by rolling a die.
Then, negotiate
2. Each company decides and negotiates. (5 min max.)
• With chance: Get a patent? Build a factory?
• Without chance: Negotiate a license
3. The facilitator adjusts the game parameters.
• Tokens on the board
• Balancing bank accounts
18
Effectiveness of the three interventions?
6
•
Quasi experiment among 160 participants in Europe
(Delft – NL, Grenoble – FR, Vienna – AT)
1. Raise patenting paradox awareness
2. Improve attention process
• Knowledge gained and better perception
• Higher attention esp. through team-work and engagement
3. Effect of gaming on learning
• Learn faster and in a different manner than classic lectures
• Help understand better during the rest of the intervention
• Maintain interest during the rest of the intervention
4. Game defeats reluctance
19
Recommendations for the firms
• Customize the “heavy” for in-house workshops
• Use the “mild” to training for new R&D staff
• Also for peer-group best practice discussions
• Use the “light” to sensitize the general staff
• Also for secondary schools and universities
• Use the “light” to make patents more known to the general public
Further directions
• Toward a quality standard of patent management
• Toward a repository of best practices
• Develop a (semi-)computerized version of the game
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Thanks for having paid attention!
• Presentation available
• Book available
• More and order at www.patenting-paradox.com
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