Innovation and inventing
By IT-lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet (blog, contact).
Innovation is the process of creating and introducing new ideas, concepts, products, services or other endeavours. Usually the term refers to technological innovation, but of course innovation in other areas is also possible.
Protection of innovation is usually done with intellectual property laws, such as patents, copyright, trademarks or trade secret law. Each of these IP rights has its own requirements, most notably that the innovation is sufficiently concrete. A mere idea cannot be protected.
Today open innovation is crucial. No single company can create all the innovations it needs by itself. The challenge therefore is how to work together to create innovative products and services.
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