Innovation CHEF

The Danish Company Dong Energy have just awarded a significant contract to the UK based SeaJacks company to put their monster ships the Kraken and Leviathon into the Irish Sea to facilitate the installation of wind turbines on Walney 1 and Walney 2 windfarms, which are to be located in the Irish Sea.

The  two wind farms will have a total capacity of 367MW, coming from 102 turbines. Walney I is set for completition at the beginning of 2011. Walney II is expected to be completed in 2012. The total power produced will be the equivalent of the yearly consumption of about 250,000 households.

British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said: ‘This is another green light for green energy. It’s a vote of confidence in the support the Government has put into backing renewable energy.

Windfarms may not be everyones first choice but this is clearly a huge step forward for clean energy and with the anouncement of the world’s first 1GW, offshore wind farm supplying enough power for around 750,000 homes – or a quarter of the Greater London homes, the UK is making the most of natural resources, resources shared by Ireland.

Are the similar bold moves ahead for Ireland?

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The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, in response to what he calls “the worst global recession of our lifetime” has announced an Innovation Task force to  ensure Ireland is well positioned for ” the global upturn when it comes.”

The idea is that this top team of advisors will create options for the government to ensure an increase in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and have Ireland positioned as an international Innovation Hub with the fabled Smart, Green Economy.

“The Ireland of the future will be a smart, high-value, export-led economy. It will have some of the world’s leading research-intensive multinationals, a number of which will be Irish-owned. It will have thousands of innovative small and medium enterprises,” the Taoiseach said.

Innovation taskforce: membership

• Dermot McCarthy , secretary general, Department of the Taoiseach (chairman)
• Lionel Alexander , vice-president general manager of Hewlett Packard (Manufacturing) Ltd and chairman of the Government’s Enterprise Feedback Group
• Prof Don Barry , president, University of Limerick
• Dr Hugh Brady , president, University College Dublin
• Damien Callaghan , investment director, Intel Capital
• Michael Carmody , president, Institute of Technology Tralee
• Dr Steven Collins , co-founder chief technical officer, Kore Virtual Machines
• Ned Costello , chief executive, Irish Universities Association
• Joe Harford , chairman of the Government’s High Level Action Group on Green Enterprise
• Dr John Hegarty , provost, Trinity College Dublin
• Dr Chris Horn , co-founder of Iona Technologies
• Dr Brian Kelly , founder chief executive, Celtic Catalysts
• Dr Burton Lee , director, European entrepreneurship programme, Stanford University; managing partner, Innovarium Ventures
• John Lynch , chief executive, Merrion Pharmaceuticals
• Tara MacMahon , IP lawyer
• Dan MacSweeney , chief executive, Carbery Group
• Bryan Mohally , vice-president of supply chain operations Europe, Johnson and Johnson
• Mark O’Donovan , director, Raglan Capital
• Barry O’Sullivan , senior vice-president, Cisco Systems
• Dr Paul Roben , president, Celtic Consulting
• Anna Scally , partner, KPMG

Henry Chesbrough of Open Innovation fame gives a very detailed presentation of his material in this 2004 video presentation to the Xerox PARC community. He puts forward the idea that innovators need to become conversant with the principles of IP management in order to be able to access external technology and maximize the return of investment of their own labs.

Check it out here.

Of course this is preaching to the choir here.

A complete innovation delivery has to include some consideration of what happens when you are successful! Basic knowledge around Patent Law isn’t hard to understand. A business that depends on technology requires an IP strategy to protect and grow THE BUSINESS.

If you are in the Business of Innovation I would fully recommend “The Fundamentals of Intellectual Property Licensing” course organised and delivered by the Licensing Excecutives Society Internal (LESI)

I would not for a minute diminish the important role your attorney or patent agent will play. Some things are clearly too important to do in a DIY fashion. Innovators who understand IP and businesses that understand IP and have developed strategies will use their legal resources more effectively and get much better value.

I have probably spent as much time involved in the management of IP as I have in Innovation practice and see the benefits that having both bring.

Interested in Feedback of course…

This is a blog response to the debate on Fred’s IP and Competition Law Blog.

SFI (and other) funding has gone into some fundamental scientific fields that are going to be important in the future. The thing to realise is that research drives one main output; more research, You find something cool, you look at it more. That is needed and Ireland has been lacking in recent times so good to see some investment. This is not really enough on it’s own though to realise a return on the investment.

Can you get a return on that investment ?

When ?

Let’s pick for example Nanotech. Most people would agree that this is a key area with a high potential to revolutionize the world. (Unfortunatley, most people get that insight from Star Trek and would be a bit wary if them met a nanite.) Also unfortunately is the fact that you can’t look forward in time and see when, or in what field the returns will be made first. It is a race where you might not finish first or at all.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski, from DCU, has written in his Blog about the need to be single minded about our need for research and innovation. To a point I agree. The policy of investment should continue in high value areas. There must also be a viable environment that can take on this new knowledge and ultimately help support the funding of the research.

What is needed is more of the resources that enable the conversion of IP and new knowledge to products, services and ultimately value.

Fred on his blog argues:

…would we not be better served licensing in technology and know-how from around the globe to become system-integrators? How about using our relatively small size to become a location of rpilot studies for new products and processess?

Good Idea from the perspective of  building innovation and commercialisation muscle that we will need when the investments in fundamental research are ripe. This all cannot be regarded as a serial process, We have to build and cultivate at every stage. Fundamental research is an important investment, but will not bear fruit in the short term. Integrators, innovators and businesses should be developed in the same areas to provide a future market for those ideas. This will enable the return on investment to be realised in the Irish economy.

It would be unrealistic to expect that researchers being spun off into companies would be solely enough. Larger corporations will have the resources to licence in IP to build their portfolios. This is the reality that the Open Innovation ethos drives. A good question to ask is whether there will be Irish companies who and build and exploit IP portfolios in these technological areas that we are investing R&D money into and whether they can grow and scale to make returns.