Achieving a Competitive Advantage With Third Party IP

1. Achieving a Competitive AdvantageWith Third Party IP • How Can You Achieve a Competitive Advantage with IP? • One way is to focus on “Disruptive” technology • What Do We Mean by Disruptive Technology? • “Basically, any stock you wished you owned started out with a Disruptive [Technology]” 2 • These are technologies that not only create new industries but may eventually change the world…. • They often come from outside the mainstream. The light bulb was not invented by the candle industry as a product improvement.1 • Frequently arise as cheaper crummy products • Think “transistor radios” and teenagers in the 1950”s • Think “Model T” and the average American 2 ___________________ • www.disruptivetechnologies.com/dtcases.html 2 Clayton Christensen, Working Knowledge, April 21, 2003 issue, Harvard Business School, 1

2. Achieving a Competitive AdvantageWith Third Party IP • Disruptive technologies require entrepreneurial champions (“Upstart technology often requires startup companies”) • Often, there are no known markets – or customers (high risk) • With the potential for champions of the next disruptive wave catch the competition from below while they’re busy “looking up” • Given the lack of an accustomed customer base and the risk of the unknown, why bother with disruptive technology? • As observed by Professor Christensen, the chances that a new company could become successful by trying to make a better product than the incumbents and selling it to the same customers were about six (6) percent. The chances of success for firms that entered with a disruptive technology were thirty-three (33) percent.1 2

3. Achieving a Competitive AdvantageWith Third Party IP Chester Carlson and the “Model D” 3

4. Achieving a Competitive AdvantageWith Third Party IP • Common Examples of disruptive technologies: • Printing Press • Internal combustion engine • Light bulb • Xerography • Transistors • Personal Computers • Compact Disk • Nanotechnology? 4

5. Achieving a Competitive AdvantageWith Third Party IPHow do you find disruptive applications in interesting technologies? A coating process to make sponge-like silica latch onto elemental metals. What’s its disruptive application? It can enable users to interface directly with computers without reliance on key boards. What’s its disruptive app? It records thousands of data points within a centimeter of skin. What’s its most significant application? Using compounds approved by FDA, it is a liquid at room temperature and solid at 980 What’s its disruptive application? 5

6. Achieving a Competitive AdvantageWith Third Party IP How Can PNNL Help: • PNNL Technical Assistance • A business must request assistance – Contact: gary.spanner@pnl.gov • Competition with the private sector is to be avoided • Business can get non-exclusive, royalty-free license to PNNL IP developed during the assistance • Each firm eligible to receive technical assistance once per fiscal year • PNNL Technology Transfer • Available technologies and names of commercialization managers available http://availabletechnologies.pnl.gov/ 6