Conference @ Sciences Po Paris

IP & Open Innovation: From building walls to building bridges ?

The new paradigms of innovation

Historically, patents have been seen as walls built around companies’ inventions, designed to protect their competitive advantages.

Nowadays, this classical use is becoming ill-adapted for a digital and fast-paced world. More and more companies are adopting a new vision of innovation, and choosing to resort to Open Innovation, Open Source Innovation and Inclusive Patents, as means to breathe new life into their growth. Now more than ever, innovation is about building bridges, between large and small companies, between companies and customers, and even between competitors, in order to create more value.

This Conference will be an opportunity to reflect on the current disruption of innovation paradigms within companies, and discuss the consequences on intellectual property, and in particular, on Patents.

Sciences Pi is honoured to host two experts on this topic:

• Albert Meige, Founder and CEO of Presans, a global digital platform of experts, Director of the Executive MBA “Leading Innovation in a Digital World” of the Institut Mines-Télécom, Expert for the Harvard Business Review France, Recipient of the École Polytechnique Innovation Prize in 2008, Author of the Book “Innovation Intelligence” (2015), Member of the Bureau of the Association “X Open Innovation”, TED Speaker, and Magician.

• Geertrui Van Overwalle, Ph.D. holder on the 'Patentability of Plants', Professor of IP Law at the K.U.Leuven and at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society, Former visiting professor at Monash University, Author of the Book “Patent Pools, Clearinghouses, Open Source Models and Liability Regimes” (2009), Researcher on “Open Innovation: The Interaction between Legal Architectures & Innovation Strategies”, former President of the European Policy for Intellectual Property research network, Member of the Economic and Scientific Advisory Board of the European Patent Office.

The Conference will be divided into 3 parts :

• A discussion of the three main trends disrupting the classical functioning of large companies regarding innovation, giving rise to the need to resort to Open Innovation, presented by Albert Meige;

• An analysis of innovation and its protection through patents, within the classical paradigm (patents as an exclusive tool), and within emerging paradigms (Open Innovation, etc.), presented by Geertrui Van Overwalle;

• An open discussion / Q&A with the audience.