[p2p-research] Fwd: Dual Licensing of Research in Renewable Energy

Tue Jun 16 11:58:02 CEST 2009

Hi Austin,

May I ask you a very basic question: do we really need royalties?

Let's assume that a company designs and sells electronic circuit boards, but
uses open designs. It still can sell the 'products' with a moderate profit,
and re-invest part of that in its own research, while sustaining an overall
commons with other companies similarly engaged. On top of that, it can keep
a moderate amount of dually licensed improvements, of its own making. This
is what I think happens in the OS world, dual licensing is what the
companies themselves develop, on top of the open commons.

Presumably, there's a problem with such a system for large upfront
investments, but this could for example be supported by grant money for the
public good, as if for example proposed for pharma research by Stiglizt and
others.

If adapt such a policy, don't you largely remove the problems with
monitoring, rewarding etc..., i.e. you just retain it for the marginal
improvements, like it is currently done, while the bulk is done in the
commons and does not need anything but 'acknowledgement and recognition,
which is automatically traceable in open design systems.

Michel

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 4:00 PM, Austin <brentley at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Hello Michel (and hello to fellow collaborators),
>
> That is a good question.
>
> I think the main issue with dual licensing (DL) is enforcement.  This is
> easy enough to accomplish when you're comparing lines of code between the
> commercial version and the original version of a FOSS project.  In fact,
> there are even programs out there that can tell you exactly what percentage
> of your original work is in future derivatives.  This seems like it would be
> harder to do with research, technology, and other forms of IP.  For example,
> let's say I create a open prototype of a fuel cell.  I give it to the
> community for improvements and collaboration.  A manufacturing firm uses
> many different aspects of the original design to create a product for
> market.  How do I track this (especially since they might never contact me
> prior to production).  And how can I prove ownership (or at least the
> community's ownership)?  If this were strictly FOSS, I probably wouldn't
> mind as much...free riding is actually central to open-source, and I only
> need a small percentage of commercial products to cover the minimal expenses
> of designing the code.  In other words, I might not always mind if some
> commercial vendors choose to cheat the system and not create a DL agreement
> with me when they use my source code.
>
> While FOSS can use DL quite easily, I'm not 100% sure that this can be
> applied to other types of innovation.....Open design often has more
> significant expenses, depending on the industry (my paper is on renewable
> energy).  CAD software, theory, computers, and internet connections are all
> quite cheap, but wind turbines, solar cells, and associated lab equipment
> often require significant R&D inputs for which one would need generous
> funding.  Currently, only universities and research parks are able to
> achieve the budgets and economies of scale necessary for some energy-related
> projects.  I'm quite new to open source and P2P, but in my perfect world,
> there would be some centralized research entity (initially funded by
> investors and eventually sustained by royalties)...surrounded by a global
> network of garage and basement contributors who shared their individual
> findings.  And in my even more perfect world, the license would be ex-post,
> meaning that only successful products actually generate royalties (meaning
> there is no risk to use the research...you only pay if you are commercially
> successful...this would further lower barriers to entry and more companies
> could race to bring commercial products to market...which is great for
> end-users).
>
> The problem is tracking, enforcement, and litigation.  How do we ensure
> that manufacturers comply with the DL arrangement....especially if the
> royalty is only after the fact.  The goal is to keep legal fees to a minimum
> which means that IP and derivatives must be unambiguous, easy to compare,
> and transparent.
>
> Hope this clarifies things.  I also created an online powerpoint
> presentation (15 slides or so) to show my supervisor.  This might further
> clarify what I hope to achieve:
> http://docs.google.com/Presentation?docid=dcdkrjn7_0dj22q9gn&hl=en.
>
> Depending on the responses I receive, my research will focus on the
> critical success factors of this project (what will it take to make it
> work)....or, it will focus on buy in (would investors, institutional
> scientists, freelance scientists, and renewable energy manufacturers want to
> participate in such an project).
>
> Thanks to you all.  So strange that I started off focusing exclusively on
> renewable energy, but now found myself becoming a novice patent researcher.
>
> Thanks Michel and Community,
>
> -Austin
>
> BTW, do you all already have an online forum where I could simply create a
> conversation thread....I don't want to flood anyone's inboxes....and those
> who contribute can build on what others have said.
>
>
>
>
> Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
> Dear friends,
>
> Thanks for reading through this request/proposal of a new funding mechanism
> for open hardware research
>
> Austin, a little question. Since dual licensing works with FOSS, and is at
> the basis of different open source companies, why would it not work, or work
> differently with open design, since that is equally an immaterial process?
>
> Michel
>
>
>
> *From:* Austin <brentley at gmail.com>
> *To:* michelsub2003 at yahoo.com
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 11, 2009 1:38:47 PM
> *Subject:* Dual Licensing of Research
>
> Hello Michel,
>
> My name is Austin and I recently came across your article (
> http://www.we-magazine.net/we-volume-02/the-emergence-of-open-design-and-open-manufacturing/)
> concerning open manufacturing..  I found this piece very encouraging since
> over the past several weeks, I have been outlining a research paper for
> school in which a self-sustaining business model could actually help speed
> up R&D in the renewable energy sector.  I realize, after reading your
> article, that my business model is not nearly as "new" as I had previous
> believed....although my approach has a few key differences.
>
> I can only imagine how busy you must be, but I was hoping you might provide
> some clarity concerning dual licensing in an open innovation business
> model.  I think a very brief background on the actual idea might make my
> questions easier to frame.  the basic components are:
>
>
>    - Investors pool money into a research firm (we'll call it Green R&D)
>    - Green R&D works exclusively on renewable technology.  They pay for
>    the labs, scientists, etc.
>    - The research is posted online periodically so that anyone and
>    everyone can contribute, ask questions, make recommendations etc....the
>    information is essentially in the commons under a "public" license of
>    sorts..
>    - Solar panel or Wind turbine companies can use this growing body of
>    research to bring products to market.
>    - Green R&D receives an ex post royalty (under a dual license) from any
>    successful products created by these solar panel and wind turbine companies.
>     - Green R&D pays out dividends to initial investors and/or uses these
>    royalties to fund additional research.
>
> Energy companies have lower R&D costs since they benefit from Green R&D's
> public findings.  Innovation happens more quickly since the silo effect has
> been removed.  You still have market incentives (which help to pay for the
> research equipment).  And Green R&D only needs a few innovations to actually
> come to market...kind of how only a fraction of dual licensees in the open
> source world end up funding the entire Innovation Pool for everyone else (as
> you mentioned).
>
> As you can see, this model bears some similarities to the community-based
> innovation you discussed in your article....but as I mentioned, there are
> some major differences as well.
>
> This is the starting point of my research paper, but I've run into some
> difficulties...namely, measuring, monitoring, and enforcing the
> collaborative IP created under such a framework.  Dual-licensing is easy to
> implement in the digital world since source code can be monitored, tracked,
> and segmented.  Not so with research and other forms of technology.  As you
> pointed out, the manufacturing world (and to a lesser extent the research
> world) requires capital outlays that don't necessarily exist in open source
> communities.  Do you believe that dual licensing could work under the
> business model outlined above?
>
> Anyway, thanks in advance for any insights that you might be able to
> offer.  I'm a latecomer to the P2P, open source, and collaborative genres,
> but I really applaud what you are doing.
>
> Many regards,
>
> -Austin
>
>
>
>

-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090616/afc49382/attachment-0001.html>