BIRCHBOB INNOVATIONS

NEWS AND VIEWS ON TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION

AROUND THE WORLD
Got science? : Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug?
By Normand St-Hilaire

So, you want to bring this great new technology you have developed to the benefit of the whole wide world. You wouldn’t mind, either, if that invention of yours released a steady flow of money into your bank account. Before you decide on how to do this, be sure you read a little of Guy Kawasaki’s inspirational views. Some of this technological evangelist’s gospel can be read on the Web.
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Mr. Guy Kawasaki
The innovation race (no. 2) : Aiming for the
 “Finnish" line
By Robert Lacas

To innovate in a remarkable way, a region does not need to be the largest, the most populated or the wealthiest.  In fact, many small countries innovate more than larger ones when taking into account their respective population. The Finnish example is particularly rich in lessons on ways to create innovation and profit from its spin-offs.  In the present innovation race, it’s a good thing to know about the Finnish way to innovate in order to cross the finish line in a leading position.  On your mark, are you set?  Go!
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Innovation commercialization : a literature review
By Sébastien Lévesque

This month, BirchBob suggests you ten documents available online for free. They come from six countries and give access to more than 1000 pages of relevant informations. Short descriptions enable you to choose those which correspond best to your interests.
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Issue: March-April 2006
©BirchBob. All Rights Reserved

Got science? : Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug?
Get inspired by technological evangelist, Guy Kawasaki
By Normand St-Hilaire


So, you want to bring this great new technology you have developed to the benefit of the whole wide world. You wouldn’t mind, either, if that invention of yours released a steady flow of money into your bank account. Before you decide on how to do this, be sure you read a little of Guy Kawasaki’s inspirational views. Some of this technological evangelist’s gospel can be read on the Web.

Guy Kawasaki was one of the original Apple Computer employees. With the official title of chief evangelist, he was in charge of marketing the Macintosh computer, in 1984. He is currently CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, a Silicon Valley, California, venture capital firm which specializes in high-technology startup firms.


Three valorization options

There are, typically, three avenues you can take to profit from your invention. First, sell it! Second, license it!

There are a number of good specialist and platforms, such as Birchbob, to help you pursue either one of these routes.

But many researchers do not want to depart from their very best idea. In such a case, they can choose to go along the third option of technological valorization: the entrepreneurial route.

This one is a risky route though, warns Kawasaki. It may well be considerably longer, very sinuous, and greatly more hazardous then the first two ones. It often leads to a dead end. But sometimes, it leads to higher grounds, and for those happy few who manage to get there – the gratification is appropriately bigger.

If the entrepreneurial route is an option you might consider, be sure you get acquainted with Kawasaki’s inspirational views. You’ll get a pretty good depiction of his – out of the beaten path – philosophy on his very own new blog (more than a quarter of a million  surfers have done so on its first month of existence).

For instance, Kawasaki reflects on the task of raising venture capital, although, “Someone”, he says, “once told me that the probability of an entrepreneur getting venture capital is the same as getting struck by lightning while standing at the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day. This may be too optimistic.”

Still, he wrote a top ten list of ways to attract the interest of venture capitalists – a thing he surely is knowledgeable about, being one himself – The Art of Raising Capital, his honest Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists, and, it’s counterpart, Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs…

Kawasaki’s latest and 8th book, The Art of the Start, begins with a top-five list of the most important things an entrepreneur must accomplish:

“1. MAKE MEANING. The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning—to create a product or service that makes the world a better place. So your first task is to decide how you can make meaning.

“2. MAKE MANTRA. Forget mission statements; they’re long, boring, and irrelevant. No one can ever remember them—much less implement them. Instead, take your meaning and make a mantra out of it. This will set your entire team on the right course.

“3. GET GOING. Start creating and delivering your product or service. Think soldering irons, compilers, hammers, saws, and AutoCAD –  whatever tools you use to build products and services. Don’t focus on pitching, writing, and planning.

“4. DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL. No matter what kind of organization you’re starting, you have to figure out a way to make money. The greatest idea, technology, product, or service is short-lived without a sustainable business model.

“5. WEAVE A MAT (MILESTONES, ASSUMPTIONS, AND TASKS). The final step is to compile three lists: (a) major milestones you need to meet; (b) assumptions that are built into your business model; and (c) tasks you need to accomplish to create an organization. This will enforce discipline and keep your organization on track when all hell breaks loose—and all hell will break loose.”

Unconventional wisdom.

Finally, if you thing you are cut for the entrepreneurial role, try his March 9 “Entrepreneurial quotient test”. Very educational.

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The innovation race (no. 2) : Aiming for the “Finnish" line
By Robert Lacas


In the two previous bulletins the United States, Europe and Asia have held our attention in the articles “A World of Innovation within Your Reach” and “Innovation Race: Political and Economical Issues of the 21st Century”.  However, innovation is not an exclusive privilege for these large countries and continents.

Any region can improve its capacity to innovate with five ingredients in variable quantities: will; strategy; perseverance; support of the population; and... a combination of circumstances!

After having pointed out that some countries show a surprising innovation capacity in respect of their size, the present article focuses on Finland whose experience is rich in teachings.

Let’s see how this country has become a synonym of innovation and a model of inspiration. To benefit from the innovation race, let’s focus on the “Finnish” line.


The law of numbers has many exceptions when applied to innovation (1, 2)

One expects that a country’s capacity for innovation will benefit from the abundance of searchers, the quality of the research infrastructures, the funds available and the number of potential users in proximity to the searchers.

It surely isn’t false, as is demonstrated by some statistics from year 2000  where United States, Japan and Germany (three countries representing 48% of the world’s GDP), accounted for 67% of global R&D and for 74% of “triadic patents” (an OECD measure of patents that are more closely associated with commercialization of research in the largest markets).

However, the opposite is not always true!  To succeed with innovation, a country does not need to be the largest, the most populated or the wealthiest.  In fact, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard (1) (EIS), the five countries innovating the most in Europe are Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark. 

Among the four European G7 members, only Germany is in the leading pack for innovation in Europe.  The three first countries and the fifth one have populations of 9, 5, 7 and 5.5 million people, respectively.  Their results evoke admiration.

The European Sector Innovation Scoreboards (2) study uses different performance indicators (measures of “leadership”) and comes to the same conclusions concerning the performances of small countries but their rankings are slightly different.  According to this report, if we consider only the three first-placed positions based on 12 evaluation criteria

  • Finland, Germany and Belgium are overall leaders in the manufacturing sectors, followed by Sweden and Austria;
  • Sweden, Finland and Germany are the overall leaders in the services sectors, followed by Belgium and Luxembourg; and
  • Denmark and the Netherlands, despite their above average EIS 2005 innovation performance, show a below-average representation in sector leadership, with the Netherlands only leading in three sectors and Denmark in no sector at all. (Which does not mean that their global result is lower than the same for countries leading in certain aspects but lagging in others).


Finland, an exceptional case (3, 4, 5, 6)

Whichever reports one consults, Finland always ranks very high on the list of innovating countries.  Besides the previously stated figures, the November 2005 statistics of the OEDC (3) emphasize that:

  • With more than 42,000 searchers, Finland is the country with the most searchers per capita, greatly ahead of Sweden, Japan, New Zealand and the United States which occupy the next four rankings;
  • This country is second after Sweden for gross domestic expenditures on R&D as a percentage of GDP (3.5%) because of the $ 5.2 billion («$ buying power parity ») invested by the industry and government with respective portions of 70% and 25.7% (plus 4.3% from other non-identified sources, probably private, foundations, etc.).
  • Finland also ranks second (behind Switzerland) in the number of patent families per capita (it precedes Japan and Sweden by approximately 10%, Germany by close to 20% and the United States by almost 40%). 

The Trendchart (4) site speaks in laudatory terms of Finland’s innovation and summarizes the situation as:

Finland is one of the EU's two star performers on innovation, a position that it shares with Sweden. It ranks second out of the 25 EU countries and third out of 33 countries, after Switzerland and Sweden. Finland ranks among the top three countries for each of the six EIS composite indices with the exception of applications and is in 1st place for innovation demand and innovation governance. Consequently, Finland has no readily identifiable weaknesses, with above-average results for all EIS indicators and for all indicators behind the domestic demand and innovation governance indices except one - the youth share of the Finnish population is 18.6%, which is below the EU country mean of 20.7%. There is little that policy can do about this over the shortterm.

The praising of Finland is even more remarkable when we remember that the country was in a dramatic situation less than 15 years ago.  As stated in the report Innovation Policy and Performance - A Cross-Country Comparison (5) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):

“In the early 1990’s, rapid economic growth turned into a deep recession mainly due to stagnation in the global economy, liquidity problems, and the inefficiency of the banking sector, national debt, debts of the enterprise sector and the collapse of Soviet Trade.  During the worst years of the recession in 1991-93, GDP fell by 12% and unemployment reached unprecedented levels at some 20%.  Recovery started in 1994 and continued throughout the decade.  EU membership in 1995 brought more stability to the economy, and opened new competitive surroundings for enterprises.  The firms that survived the recession were rather well equipped for the new environment. 

The country has come out of the doldrums of the 90’s and has now one of the most dynamic economies of the 21st century.

In the article, Finnish Competitiveness (6) published in 2001, the manager of the Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers declared that “the main factors that contributed to Finland's rise were the following: 1) devaluations that eliminated the overvaluation of the Finnish mark; 2) budget cuts in the public sector; 3) a radical overhaul of the corporate tax system; 4) a strong growth in investment in research and development; 5) successful corporate-strategy choices; and 6) the economic upturn that began in the early 90’s in western countries. All these factors together created a positive, competitive environment that Finland exploited to good effect”.

Many countries would like to do as much in such a short time.  However, by examining the situation with more scrutiny, we can see that the source of Finland’s success goes farther back than the solutions devised to get out of the 90’s crisis.  We also find that the Finnish innovation rests on four pillars:

  • Implication, consultation and networking;
  • Constancy of actions;
  • Efficiency of structures put in place; and
  • The Finns themselves.
These four elements are closely interwoven in the following paragraphs.


The roots of innovation success in Finland (5, 7)

At the end of the 70’s, when other European countries worried about negative impacts of electronics on jobs, Finland created its most important committee to evaluate the technological future of the country.  With members representing all debating interests, the committee succeeded in creating a large consensus about a long-term program to improve the technological level of Finland to insure the durability of its social policies.  In order to support such development, a government resolution on technology policy was passed in 1982.

The country then identified three priority sectors: electronics; biotechnology; and material technologies.  The continuous increase in research effort was the master idea of the development plan. The country did not depart from this line of conduct.

In Finland, innovation is not a luxury ventured when finances are strong and relinquished when belt-tightening is required.  Seen as a solution to problems, innovation is mainly a priority (foremost?) when the economy deteriorates as in the 90’s.  In fact, innovation investments have steadily increased in the 90’s, before, during and after the recession.  Everyone did his share between 1991 and 1999 - the government (a little), universities (a lot) and industry (enormously).  We note that businesspersons benefit from an active support of the government but there is no tax credit for R&D in Finland (7).  Finland thus considers that the continuous growth of R&D budgets is a priority policy objective.

The administration of government investments in R&D falls mostly under non-political organizations having great autonomy to set the objectives and choose the means to achieve them.

The Finnish economy is highly clustered.  Foodstuffs, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT); metals, construction and forestry clusters, collectively account for three-quarters of total value added.  The clusters are relatively dependant on their domestic suppliers with an average of 63% of the factors of production coming from domestic sources.  The clusters are also quite concentrated.  When leaders are growing, other cluster members benefit.  Dialogue is thus mutually beneficial for all parties concerned.

A key element in networking and clustering is the co-operation between firms, universities and research institutes.  Finnish industry-science links have been praised in many international comparisons.  Cooperation between research institutions and firms has been intensified, especially in recent years.  Universities are well-involved in the research needs of the main clusters.

University legislation is currently being amended … to promote the diffusion and utilization of research findings widely throughout the economy, and the business enterprise sector, in particular.  New legislation concerning the intellectual property rights of university personnel is also in preparation (5).


A structure in favor of innovation (4, 8, 9, 10, 11)

Three subsidy organizations mainly channel Government aid to R&D:

  • Academy of Finland (AKA) (8) :  finances university research and orients government science policies.  The Academy is comprised of three councils - one for biosciences and environment, one for culture and society and one for natural sciences and engineering.  Its annual budget is about 250 million euros.  AKA uses its programs to orient long-term university research towards priority themes, notably by the support given to excellence centers (17 subsidies for 1995 – 1999, 26 for 2000 – 2005 and 23 for 2006 à 2011);

  • National Technology Agency of Finland (TEKES) (9): is responsible for industrial R&D including some thirty research institutes.  Its annual budget is about 500 million euros (about 40% to universities and other research institutions and 60% to businesses).  TEKES is a real cornerstone for the commercialization of innovation in Finland.  The next chapter of the article will thus be entirely dedicated to TEKES; and

  • Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (SITRA) (10): provides funds favoring the launching of new enterprises.  SITRA acts as a venture capital firm with an economical development vocation.  It reinvests the amounts returned by companies that it helped grow (including Nokia who returned many times the amounts the government invested in the company when it was much needed). 

More than 90% of the enterprises in which SITRA has invested had already dealt with TEKES, and a certain number of projects supported by TEKES probably come from works originally supported by AKA.  These three organizations thus constitute a logical path for the commercialization of innovation in Finland.

Considering additional investments from universities and ministries, 1.4 billion euros is the amount generally estimated as spent by the Finnish government for innovation. Let’s remember that this amount represents only 25.7% of innovation investments in Finland and that 70% of the Finnish R&D is supported by the industry.

In Finland, six sectors rank as the most innovating in Europe (4) :

  • Basic metals;
  • Electrical and optical equipment;
  • Information and Communication Technologies (ICT);
  • Machinery and equipment;
  • Mining and quarrying; and
  • Textiles and textile products.

In addition, five other sectors rank well above the European average:

  • Chemicals and chemicals products;
  • Fabricated metal products excluding machinery and equipment;
  • Paper products, publishing and printing;
  • Transport, storage and communication; and
  • Wood and products of wood


Tekes: a key element for innovation in Finland (12, 13, 14)

Created in 1983, Tekes has continuously gained importance in Finland.  It now manages a budget close to 500 million euros.  To have Tekes’ equivalent in the United States (or for the whole of Europe), an organization should distribute 30 billion dollars per year for R&D.  This well-illustrates the importance of Tekes in Finland.  Furthermore, this budget is handled in an almost autonomous fashion (the government intervenes very little in the administration of activities it finances).  However, Tekes systematically consults before investing the amounts it receives.  To adjust itself to the evolution of needs and opportunities, 1,000 strategic discussions are organized every year by Tekes management and experts with executives and specialists from companies, universities and research institutes. Strategy reports published in various sectors are also used as background material.

Tekes well-describes its vision on innovation in its document Building on Innovation – Priorities for the Future (12) from which here are a few excerpts:

  • Globalization constitutes a challenge, but also an opportunity.  Exploiting this opportunity calls for a capacity for continuous renewal from the Finnish economy;
  • Technological knowledge and competence are Finland’s strengths, enabling them to build new, customer-driven innovations.  It needs national and international cooperation, likewise an attitude towards renewal and flexibility in systems and structures. It also needs entrepreneurship and incentives for society in general, the business sectors and individuals alike;
  • Finnish business is undergoing a severe structural change as the focus is shifting from a production society towards a learning society based on knowledge and competence;
  • Tekes finances and activates highly-challenging R&D projects in companies, universities and research institutes, allocating half its funding to the best and most challenging projects according to demand, and the other half through technology programs in selected focus areas; and
  • The major global drivers of economic and social progress have been identified as: globalization and competition in the business environment; demographic change and social development and values; sustainable development; knowledge and competence and their management; technology as a driver of change; and networking.

The selected focus areas are intended to achieve the following:

  • Strong Finnish industrial clusters are encouraged to undertake challenging, long-term projects that may involve considerable risks;
  • Areas within clusters or sub-clusters with the best potential for growth and success in global competition will be encouraged to develop. Strategic growth areas are customer-oriented and lay emphasis on cross-technology approaches;
  • Interfaces between strong sectors or clusters generate customer-driven new businesses which are attractive for the Finnish economy and which are increasing;
  • Services and service concepts;
  • Extensive use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT);
  • Securing long-term, stable development for generic technologies; and
  •  Application-oriented centres and networks of knowledge and competence.

Tekes’ goals vary with sectors:

  • Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) : to be a world leader in applying and developing technology;
  • Biotechnology : to be a significant developer and user;
  • Materials technology : to be an expert developer and applier; and
  • Nanotechnology: to be an applier and developer in combining technologies in a value adding way.

The aim in business competence for Finland is to be a world leader in innovation – combining technology competence with business competence.

(Reminder: all the above about Tekes comes from the document Building on Innovation – Priorities for the Future(12)

For more information, see the list All Technology Programmes (13) from Tekes and the 34 slides (14) describing the strategic positioning of Tekes and the Finnish clusters.


The “Finnish touch” (5, 6, 7, 12, 15)

Since the end of the 50’s, Finland has changed at a pace with few equivalents in the world. The country has come from an agricultural and conservative society to one of high technology in rapid evolution.  To do so, the country has succeeded in:

Establishing consensus;

  • Maintaining the heading on priorities regardless of economical uncertainties;
  • Putting together a structure adapted to needs and favoring networking; and
  • Taking the required corrective actions without questioning everything.

In addition to the above-mentioned factors, the success of Finland’s technological conversion is explainable by many human factors:

  • The Finns are technophiles. On one hand, they always have been quick to adopt new technologies.  On the other, according to the OECD, they would have a “strong trust in technological solutions to overcome the challenges of an austere nature” and “a steady belief in culture and education as generators of social and economic benefits”;
  • The Finns put more trust in their government than the average Europeans and Americans.  This has helped the former to establish a long-term national restoration and growth program based on strong public-private partnership;
  • The Finns are not (too much) afraid of change.  They reinvented their society in the last 30 years but, regardless of their actual success, many already advocate going through the same process in the next 30 years;
  • Small and medium enterprises (SME) play an important role in Finland and are not neglected for the benefit of future Nokias.  SME receive over 50% of all public R&D funding for the business enterprise sector (compared to the EU15 average of roughly 15%).  At least a third of all SME’s have received some type of government funding.  Networking with smaller firms is a key criterion for Tekes R&D funding appropriated to large companies; and
  • The Finns are not afraid of risk.  In an interview with the Washington Post (Innovation Gives Finland A Firm Grasp on Its Future) (15), Tekes’ president declared that Tekes contributes to the orientation of projects it will finance, that approximately one-third of financed projects were failures and that he wished the percentage would be even HIGHER.  This surprising statement perfectly shows that Tekes’ role is not to minimize risks but to favor technology breakthroughs that will greatly benefit the country, knowing very well that such projects are more risky.

The Finns “innovate in their ways to innovate”.  They know how to reinvent themselves within relatively stable structures.  The results they have obtained seem to demonstrate that this approach would be much more productive than a change of structures without a change of mentality, as found in many other countries. A nice subject for a debate, don’t you think?  We cordially invite you to share your comments on BirchBob’s blog.


Information sources about Finland

Documents of great interest specifically about Finland (other than those already referred to)

    Documents of great interest about many countries including Finland (other than those already referred to)

    Internet sites of interest (other than those already referred to)

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    Innovation commercialization: a literature review
    By Sébastien Lévesque

    Product cycles, innovation and exports: A study of Indian pharmaceuticals
    This paper sheds light on the product cycle and neotechnology theories of trade in the context of generic pharmaceuticals. The paper studies the export performance of 177 Indian pharmaceutical firms for the post-liberalization period 1991-2004. The results indicate that technology proxied by foreign patent rights has a positive impact on exports. This suggests that developing countries with innovation skills for process innovations are capable of penetrating international markets in the later stages of the product cycle by using patents, which were the barriers to trade in the early stages of the product cycle. Thus, Indian pharmaceutical firms adept at reverse-engineering of brandname drugs have an opportunity to enter the global generic market for off-patent drugs.
    http://nt2.fas.nus.edu.sg/ecs/pub/wp/wp0511.pdf
    Singapore / Alka Chadha / 2005 / 29 p.


    The Logic of Invention
    In this essay W. Brian Arthur wants to explore how novel technologies come into being. He wants to ask how radically new technologies—ones such as radar, the polymerase chain reaction, the turbojet, or the laser printer—come to exist as entities that depart in some deep sense from what went before.
    http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/05-12-045.pdf
    USA / W. Brian Arthur - Santa Fe Institute / December 2005 / 20 p.


    Accelerating Growth: Fostering Environmental Technology Innovation & Commercialization in Atlantic Canada
    ÆGIS Management Consulting Group was engaged by the Atlantic Environmental Technology Advancement Network (AETAN) in the fall of 2004 to provide a report on Fostering Environmental Technology Innovation and Commercialization in Atlantic Canadian SMEs. The following pages reflect the research, analysis and interpretation of the findings. The overall purpose of the project is defined in the following sentence – Identify a model and/or mechanism that would effectively engage and support Atlantic Canadian firms, particularly SMEs, in environmental technology innovation and commercialization.
    http://www.acoa.ca/e/library/reports/sectorFocussed/accelGrowth.shtml
    Canada / ÆGIS Management Consulting Group / August 2005 / 109 p.


    Commercializing Cohen-Boyer 1980-1997
    This paper by Maryann Feldman, Alessandra Colaianni and Kang Liu examines the history of the licensing and subsequent commercialization of the Cohen-Boyer Patents. These licenses are considered among the most successful examples of university technology transfer in terms of generating revenue and creating a range of new products. Stanford was negotiating new ground with their licensing program and they consulted widely in the design and implementation their program. The paper begins by providing the context for Stanford’s approach to licensing and then examines the implementation of the licensing practices and procedures. The final section of the paper examines the commercial products that companies developed using the technology and the resulting licensing revenues.
    http://www.druid.dk/wp/pdf_files/05-21.pdf
    USA / Maryann Feldman, Alessandra Colaianni and Kang Liu – Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics / December 2005 /42 p.


    The Spread of Innovations through Social Learning
    Innovations often spread by the communication of information among potential adopters. In the marketing literature, the standard model of new product diffusion is generated by information contagion: agents adopt once they hear about the existence of the product from someone else. In social learning models, by contrast, an agent adopts only when the perceived advantage of the innovation -- as revealed by the actions and experience of prior adopters -- exceeds a threshold determined by the agent's prior beliefs. H. Peyton Young demonstrates that learning with heterogeneous priors generates adoption curves that have an analytically tractable, closed-form solution.
    http://www.brookings.edu/es/dynamics/papers/csed_wp43.htm
    USA / H. Peyton Young  - The Brookings Institution / December 2005 / 34 p.


    New approaches to intellectual property: from open software to knowledge-based industrial activities
    The authors analyse the question of intellectual property in computer software, showing that both copyright and patents do not fit to the specificities and needs of this industry. The alternative model of Open Source Software, based on a very new juridical concept called GPL "General Public Licence", tends to take a growing importance. They explain its main characteristics, which consist in imposing the producers to disclose of both the source-code of the concerned programmes and any further improvement if they are re-distributed/re-sold. They show that by this process a totally different approach of intellectual property within industrial strategies is introduced, based on a weaker intellectual protection. They discuss the consequences of such a movement in institutional and public policy terms and they enlarge the approach to understand its exemplarity, in the context of a knowledge-based economy, for a growing number of industrial activities.
    http://www.vcharite.univ-mrs.fr/GREQAM/pdf/working_papers/2005/2005-39.pdf
    France - Nicolas Jullien and Jean-Benoît Zimmermann - Groupement de Recherche en Economie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille  / August 2005 / 25 p.


    Policy Framework for Intellectual Property Derived from State-Funded Research: Final report to the California Legislature. Governor of the State of California
    California should develop a set of policies consistent with the federal Bayh-Dole Act to manage patents and other intellectual property (IP) resulting from state-funded research, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) said in this report. The study group urged that state IP policies be consistent across agencies and increase opportunities for the development of new products services. Key goals in creating a California set of policies would be to ensure consistency with the federal Bayh-Dole Act, streamline contracting processes, preserve state's rights, and minimize the costs of doing so. The study group notes that although state funding is important, clearly non-state funding drives the research conducted in the state's academic and non-profit research institutions.
    http://www.ccst.us/ccst/pubfeatured/featurepubdexIP.html
    USA / California Council on Science and Technology / August 2005 / 118 p


    .Intellectual property activity by service sector and manufacturing firms in the UK, 1996-2000
    This paper by Christine Greenhalgh and Mark Rogers provides evidence from a newly constructed database of UK firms about the extent of their intellectual property acquisition activities over five years. The authors focus on service sector firms, which have not previously been studied, with comparisons for firms in manufacturing and other sectors, such as agriculture. The measures of IP include both trade marks, which are most important in services, and patents, which are predominantly sought by manufacturing firms. The analysis includes patents and trade marks applied for via both the UK and European routes.
    http://www.oiprc.ox.ac.uk/EJWP1405.html
    UK / Christine Greenhalgh and Mark Rogers - Oxford IP Research Centre /December 2005 /  21 p.


    From innovation development to implementation: evidence from the Community Innovation Survey
    Innovation surveys provide a broad measure of the successful commercial introduction of new product and process innovations. The dual purposes of this paper by the OECD are to establish whether survey-based measures of innovation are related to more widely used intermediate measures, such as R&D and patents, and to identify the principal factors that affect the probability of successful innovation.
    http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2005doc.nsf/linkto/ECO-WKP(2005)45
    International / OECD / December 2005 / 55 p.


    AUTM U.S. Licensing Survey: FY 2004
    The Association of University Technology Managers, the premier nonprofit group for academic technology transfer professionals, announces the release of the summary report of the AUTM U.S. Licensing Survey: FY 2004. Now in its 14th year of publication, the AUTM Licensing Survey is the most comprehensive report of its kind, providing quantitative information about licensing activities at universities, hospitals and research institutions across North America.
    http://www.autm.net/surveys/dsp.surveyDetail.cfm?pid=28
    USA / The Association of University Technology Managers / 2005 / 71 p.

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