My pre-survey reading opened my mind to the number of ways that intellectual property assets are used to expand market opportunities. Intellectual property is one asset that can be leveraged to grow or scale a nonprofit organization. It is something I have seen done by previous employers and clients. I wondered how prevalent it would […]

I was also curious to know if nonprofit organizations were using their intellectual property assets to generate revenues through their own work as fee-for-service or other fees. At the time it seemed silly because fee-for-services represents about 80 cents of every dollar received by nonprofits. But, as that same article points out, that statistic is […]

The nine organizations that license their intellectual property to other organizations were then asked a series of questions about permission to modify and resell licensed IP. I asked this to get a better understanding of where respondents fit on the spectrum of protection for their IP asset. For example, did they prefer weak or strong […]

One of the ways intellectual property assets create value is in the ability to license the right to use the intellectual property to others. This can be for a fee or not. Either way, the owner’s stock of reputational or expertise capital grows simply by having a valuable asset that creates value and utility for […]

All of the nonprofits were asked who is authorized to make decisions regarding the use of organization’s Intellectual Property on behalf of the organization. This question is distinct from the one asked earlier about the day-to-day management because it gets at the strategic, rather than tactical, usage of IP. The nonprofits shared that: Comparing this […]

The next set of questions in the 2014 survey circled back to the ownership of the nonprofit’s intellectual property. There is no ability to exclude if an organization does not have some ownership in the IP assets. The more I thought about ownership of IP assets in the nonprofit sector and discussed this series of […]

The next question I asked the respondents was whether the organization had officially registered their copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office or their trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Asking about the registration of intellectual property is insight into two things: that there is a desire to claim ownership and the ability to […]

As capstones to my reading, these two texts helped to frame some key concepts that would move my nonprofit intellectual property questions forward. I was out of my comfort zone with Lessig’s The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World and Landes and Posner’s The Economic Structure of Property Law. […]

I really had no idea what reading about open innovation might be about, other than I thought it was loosely connected to the ideas of open source. Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm was as eye-opening about the mechanisms for innovation as Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice was thought-provoking. The concept of open innovation […]

I started my reading with Burning the Ships: Transforming Your Company’s Culture Through Intellectual Property Strategy. Marshall Phelps, also happened to be an alumnus of Muskingum University, where I was working at the time. It didn’t hurt to be able to say I’d read his book to my bosses. Frankly, the book was immensely insightful. […]