Potentially ground-breaking and pioneering intellectual property from Australian research is now publicly available for the commercially astute to evolve into the market, thanks to the launch of IP Australia’s ‘Source IP’ service.
A new digital IP marketplace, the Source IP platform features public sector research from a stronghold of Australia’s 40 universities, along with the Commonwealth organisations ANSTO, CSIRO, DST Group and NICTA (DATA61). Furthermore there are 10 major industry partners including Telstra, the big four banks and IBM, who are the largest patent filer in the world.
Source IP will act as a “match-making” service between research and business.
While the marketplace currently only hosts public sector research IP, it is hoped that by mid-2016, all the “preloaded private sector IP” will also be made available.
Speaking to InnovationAus.com, IP Australia’s director of continuous improvement and innovation Matt Fenech said there are incredible possibilities for Australia now that the portal is live.
For example, demonstrated at the launch yesterday was a droplet lens developed at Australian National University where through a chemical process, when applied to the back of a mobile phone it will instantly turn the mobile into a microscope. It costs only about one cent to produce.
Further examples of IP on the site comes from the CSIRO and their work in placing microchips on small insects such as bees, and an Adelaide-founded one-drop blood test that can tell a person’s blood type via a simple paper swab.
Source IP is incredibly well timed ahead of mid-December’s anticipated Innovation Statement from the Australian Government, which is expected to look heavily at ways to enhance research and industry collaboration for the commercialisation of research. IP Australia is hoping that the system will go a long way toward furthering the innovation conversations currently taking place.
“Something we really want to do is align Source IP with other activities across government,” Mr Fenech said.
“So to develop a link with the R&D tax incentive for example, which would be a great way to get commercialisation and industry partners on board, working with research partners to actually develop the product to a point that it can go to market.
“We’re really looking to the Innovation Statement, to continue to drive what we have already started and it has already gone a long way in supporting this early ground work of Source IP,” he added.
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