With a small team of professionals I’ve embarked on a mission to tackle one of the biggest challenges in innovation today: Why do so few inventions ever become marketable products? With an estimated conversion rate of just 5%, something clearly needs to change. It’s not just a problem of ideas—it’s a structural issue within the innovation ecosystem.
My journey into this began after a career in IT research, benchmarking analytics and intellectual property consulting. After landing in New York, I became involved with the startup ecosystem and a patent analytics startup. A mentee of mine invited me to join, invest in, and eventually take the role of CEO. At the time, the company was in stealth mode, but today, it’s in deep stealth mode, also known as: it failed.
During my time there, I started to work with several universities and realized the enormous need for a system that better helps them commercialize their intellectual property (IP). It became clear that while we’ve made great strides in generating new ideas, the real problem is moving those inventions into the hands of people who can turn them into products.
Realizing the challenge was bigger than I initially thought, I pivoted my approach to focus on something broader and more impactful. I saw that solving this issue could have a tremendous societal and economic impact. With that, I developed two guiding principles for this mission:
Marketable innovation needs a capital system that enables transactions—whether through licensing, sales, or startup funding—and encourages collaboration. A healthy capital system drives efficiency.
Sellers and buyers of IP must have a shared understanding of value, opportunity, and risk. While perspectives will differ depending on their context, the baseline understanding must be similar for efficient transactions to take place.
These principles led to three core elements in my strategy:
Bringing key market actors together: Universities, corporations, VCs, and other essential players must work together to define standards, build a proof of concept, and test the system. Law firms, audit firms, consultants, and government agencies like the USPTO, NSF, and SEC also have critical roles to play.
Creating liquidity in the market: For any marketplace to function properly, liquidity is essential. The platform will focus on fostering both buy-side and sell-side dynamics to drive transactions.
Developing IP transaction standards: Clear, standardized procedures for IP transactions are crucial for long-term success.
This is no easy task, but it’s a worthwhile challenge. The vision is to create a global platform for IP transactions—a utility platform that’s trusted, independent, and built by a growing consortium of public and private partners. It will take time, requiring many iterations and evolutions, but I believe it will be transformative.
Just as financial markets took hundreds of years to develop, we’ll need time and effort to build the IP capital markets of the future. But with today’s technology, this process will happen much faster.
Now, I’m inviting you to join this mission. Whether you’re from a university, corporation, venture capital firm, or another sector, your ideas, expertise, and support are invaluable. Together, we can build the foundation for a platform that will accelerate innovation across the world. Visit IPC Alliance to learn more and see how you can get involved.
Let’s shape the future of innovation together!
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