GOT an inventive mind and feel like making a few thousand pounds? Then you might have some fun with , a website that will go live in late August. The site will ask users to suggest lucrative uses for 鈥渦nderexploited鈥� patented technologies 鈥� with cash prizes of up to 拢10,000 for the best ideas.
鈥淭here are a lot of dormant inventions just gathering dust in research universities,鈥� says Daniel Perez, Marblar鈥檚 CEO. 鈥淭his is taxpayer or philanthropy-funded research that isn鈥檛 demonstrating the impact it could. So we鈥檒l simply be asking our users how they would use this invention.鈥�
Marblar is getting universities on board, as well as UK organisations like the Medical Research Council and the Science and Technology Facilities Council, all of which have patented technologies that they would like to squeeze more cash out of.
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To test the idea, Marblar posted a technique patented by the University of Southampton that allows DNA nucleotides to be knitted together without using an enzyme. Days later, a University of Cambridge academic hit on a new use for the technique in screening potential DNA-based therapies. 鈥淭his was a problem that the inventor wasn鈥檛 really aware existed, much less that his discovery could solve,鈥� says Gabriel Mecklenburg of Marblar. 鈥淭here may be now be start-up ideas around this tech.鈥�
鈥淚f Marblar leads to ideas like that it could well work. Any innovation like that has got to be encouraged,鈥� says Peter Finnie, a patent attorney with Gill, Jennings and Every in London.
Marblar is the latest in a string of 鈥渙pen innovation鈥� sites that attempt, in one way or another, to encourage inventiveness online. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing many new online ways of interacting with the crowd,鈥� says Finnie. 鈥淎ll are geared at coming up with ideas you wouldn鈥檛 have thought of yourself.鈥�
For instance, he says, asks its community of users to find 鈥減rior art鈥� 鈥� published documents that show an invention existed before it was patented 鈥� to quash patents that firms have been accused of infringing. Again, there are cash awards available, as there are at , where companies and NGOs present problems that they need solving 鈥� such as how to develop a for the developing world. On the flipside, and post university and corporate research in a bid to find people who鈥檒l license their technology to commercialise it.
鈥淏ut most of these are dating sites for intellectual property,鈥� says Perez. 鈥淲e鈥檙e making tech transfer fun and gamifying it.鈥�
Fun it may be 鈥� but Finnie warns that there could be problems if users give away for a mere 拢10,000 an idea that ends up kicking off a billion-dollar industry. This could happen, he says, because most patents cite the industrial application of an invention. 鈥淪o the person who comes up with a new application may be regarded in law as the inventor. Yet they may just give the idea away online.鈥�
Perez believes Marblar鈥檚 prize money will suffice. 鈥淯sers have to ask why they are doing this. Are they doing it to make millions? Or as a bit of fun 鈥� creative problem-solving? In our tests, winners did not feel taken advantage of.鈥�
聯Users have to ask if they are doing this to make millions, or as a bit of fun 鈥� creative problem-solving聰
Time will tell, says Finnie. 鈥淢arblar expects to see start-ups forming around the contributed ideas. But that鈥檚 when people start to fall out.鈥�
