Weak approach to IP could be disastrous: International expert

Tuesday, 26 February 2013 00:00 -     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Mobile Monday Colombo (MoMo) kicked off 2013 with a meet-up on 18 February 2013 at The Bayleaf. Focus was drawn to the much-debated topic in the world of mobile software in the recent past – ‘Intellectual Property’.



“With the mobile industry seeing a growth in the application development sector with opportunities opening up in market for Android , IOS and Wndows apps, we felt this was a good time to address the issue of intellectual property,” said Nayana Serasinghe, CEO of Dinota, who heads the Mobile and Telco CoE of SLASSCOM.

“Dr. Geoff Gregson, Director of Axienta Limited and Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at University of Edinburgh Business School who delivered the key note address on ‘Commercialising and Protecting your ideas and Intellectual Property: Focusing on the Mobile Application Industry,’ has had years of experience in the field and we felt he was best suited to give us a few pointers in this area” said Serasinghe.

Dr. Gregson in his presentation explained that a weak approach to IP has proven to be disastrous for emerging businesses and entrepreneurs as mistakes will be very costly to rectify down the road. “A business may have a wealth of IP but you may not know it. Most of the emerging businesses fail to maintain confidentiality and ownership of their IP,” said Dr. Gregson.  

The speaker outlined some recent examples of the heavy price of Intellectual Property paid for by tech giants including the following:

nGoogle paying US$12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility (17,000+ patents)

nA Consortium paying US$4.5 billion for Nortel (6500+ patents)

nMicrosoft paying AOL US$1billion for 800+ patents:

  •  Content generation/mgmt., security, etc.
  • Advertising, search, social networking, mapping
  • MS now has ~20,000 granted patents

He went on to present several options that would help businesses to protect their IP including licensing and also outlined and commercialisation strategies with particular emphasis given to IP infringements.

The event attracted a large gathering of mobile enthusiasts from multiple disciplines. The participants of MoMo were given an opportunity to interact with each other in an informal session after the presentation as well.

“We will be bringing on more speakers relevant to the community in the next few sessions that have been planned out for 2013. We are extremely happy with the turn out on Monday and we hope to engage the mobile community very often with similar events throughout this year and we look forward to the participation from mobile enthusiasts and industry stalwarts in the future,” stated Serasinghe.

Mobile Monday (MoMo) Colombo was set up in 2010 as an initiative of the Mobile & Telco CoE of SLASSCOM. The MoMo team is geared to take the necessary steps to encourage individuals from within the mobile and telco community to meet on a regular basis, share ideas, network and work as a community platform as is the philosophy of the global Mobile Monday group. MoMo Colombo is strengthened by the membership of industry leaders such as 99x Technologies, Axienta, Dialog, Dinota, hSenid Mobile, Informatics, JKCS, Leapset, Motorola, Sabre, Talliance, Virtusa and Wavenet.

Mobile Monday (MoMo) is an open community platform of mobile industry visionaries, developers and influential individuals fostering brand neutral cooperation and cross-border P2P business opportunities through live networking events to demo products, share ideas and discuss trends from both local and global markets. Originating in Helsinki Finland, in 2000, activities are organised by some 300 dedicated volunteers from around the world and have become an industry leading mobile platform. Chapters have held events in over 140 cities worldwide and continue to launch new locations monthly.

SLASSCOM acts as the catalyst of growth for the Sri Lankan IT and BPO industry by facilitating trade and business, propagation of education and employment, encouragement of research and innovation, and by supporting the creation of a progressive national policy framework. Follow @SLASSCOM on twitter or visit www.slasscom.lk for more information.

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