- Old innovations can still be commercially successful if they solve problems and have not been replaced. Governments and the EU should help match old innovations with companies to increase competitiveness. - There are different categories of old innovations including those with valid but old patents, re-innovated innovations, innovations without IP protection, and open source innovations. - National governments and the EU should provide services to connect companies with upcoming patent expirations or innovations that cannot be patented in order to support industry and jobs. This includes informing companies of profitable opportunities with expired patents.

1. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
Enhance EC member states competiveness
Part 25: Old innovations
Abstract
From a commercial point of view old innovations are interesting as long as these are commercially successful, fill a demand and are not replaced by a newer. Old innovations are found in innovations who have a valid but old patent, re-innovated innovations, innovations that cannot not have IP-protection and everything in-between. There is a need for government and EU to enable matching of old innovations with companies in order to make these more competitive.
Background
Helping geniuses! Our slogan sums up whom Somerco aims to help. Somerco are a company that target to help researchers and innovators so that these geniuses can create prosperity and jobs in society. In this paper, I discuss the importance of old innovations for companies large as small.
Introduction
Often we find that when innovations become older these are still interesting from a commercial point of view. A contemporary example is the CD-disc that after its patent expires still will be a commercial success, even if it is losing in importance. Historically, we find innovations that has stand the test of time for centuries and the greatest example could be the wheel that arguably still is relevant.
We can also find innovations that were not a commercial success soon after it was invented as the laser. Often it takes several years or even decades before innovations become a commercial success. The reasons for this might be that the innovators or companies has not been able to commercialize it, they had not yet come up with a way to use the innovation and so on. Herein, lays a hidden treasure for those who are interested in exploiting old innovations.
The point I am making, no matter how old an innovation are these are interesting from a commercial aspect as long as these are solving a problem and nothing better can replace them.
In my discussion, I divide these into old innovations with valid patent, those with an expired patent, re-innovated innovation, old innovations that have been open-sourced and those innovations that are not possible to attain IP protection as social innovations. Both governmental organisations and companies work to exploit these best possible. Perhaps, more can be done. For the governmental sector, it means to exploit old innovations should be on the political agenda of all states and EU.
Below I discuss old innovations in different scenarios. In reality, often these scenarios overlap each other. For instance, a re-innovated innovation based on a valid patent that soon expires or that are based on an expired patent. By discussing these in different scenarios it is easy to highlight important different aspect of old innovations.

2. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
Valid, but old patent
To increase the commercial success for patented innovations can be achieved. That is if we do accept it is very important to help also those companies and innovators with an old but valid patent on an innovation. Even if the patent might expire in two years they could have a high commercial value that extends well beyond the expiration date. Because meantime companies and innovators can often scale up the production capacity and commercialize their patented innovations and maintain a competitive advantage for some time after.
Also when it is possible to turn into profit with innovative products based on valid but old patents there are good reasons for pushing ahead with adopting these into the product portfolio.
A scenario could be that the innovators late teamed up with investors that had knowledge about a cost effective way to mass produce products based on the innovation. By the time the patent expires they have not only built up more competence and own their niche market, they have also been able to file for new innovations that will help their business in the future.
Re-innovate innovations
Old innovations are sometimes re-innovated when someone has found another application for these or when new technology arrives. Other times it is new production methods that enable re-innovation of products. Re-innovation of old innovative products is a large contributor to commercial products.
In the example, given below it is the re-innovated innovation that has reached larger commercial success, rather than the initial purpose of the innovation.
Ask any astronaut: When you're hurtling toward Earth in an oversized tin can, it's good to have a cushion to help protect your body. The task of developing that cushion fell to a team of aeronautical engineers who invented a pressure-absorbing material, known as visco-elastic polyurethane foam also called “Temper Foam". It improved conditions for human survival in impacts generating up to 36 G's due to its heat-sensitive nature. The innovator Yost started his own company, Dynamic Systems Inc. (DSI), to develop the material commercially. DSI used Temper Foam in a variety of applications, from ejection seats and wheelchair cushions to ski boots and football helmet liners.1
Then, in the 1980s, NASA released its patented formula to the public domain. Many companies tried to develop commercial applications using the viscoelastic polyurethane foam, but few were successful. One company that did succeed was Fagerdala World Foams, a Swedish firm that transformed Yost's Temper Foam into the Tempur-Pedic mattress in 1991. Within three years, 50,000 Swedes were going to bed each night on a Tempur-Pedic mattress. In 1992, North American distribution rights went to a Lexington, Ky. The company is a
1 10 New Uses for Old Inventions. http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/repurposed-inventions/10-new- uses-for-old-inventions.htm

3. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
leading supplier of foam-based mattresses and pillows, with annual sales topping $1 billion in 2010.2
As seen by this and also numerous other examples technology transfer of old innovation into new industry sectors is an important aspect to lift forward in order for industry to remain competitive. This knowledge can be found with professionals at universities, technology parks and so on.
Patent expired
There is an abundance of examples of commercially successful products based on innovations with patents that has expired a long time ago. However, I focus on those innovations that recently have or very soon will expire. To start, innovations with patents that expire can be found in all science and industry sectors. Sometimes, these have been attached to a company or innovators who have made it a commercial success. At other times, you find patents on innovations that companies or innovators has failed to make into a commercial success. To revaluate these patents is an important part in most industry sectors. Expired patents also enable companies to get free competition. Most often it also means cheaper prices for us.
In this scenario, I focus on the manufacturing industry. Except for the patent holders expired patents is an opportunity. A reason is that companies already manufacturing products do not need to pay license fees. It also lowers the entrance level for new companies to manufacture new products with profit.
It is important to point out that not all companies need to be in the forefront of R & D. If companies accept that these can become a part of the industrial Europe or perhaps the re- industrialization of Europe. So for Europe, it is beneficial with a matching between innovations, with patents that soon expires or that recently expired, and European companies. In particular, to find those patents that do not have a company attached who have built up a huge competitive advantage based on their patent. For new companies entering this market it makes easier to gain a quick market share.
For governmental agencies and EU to provide a service in society where companies can ask for help finding these market conditions regarding recently expired patents can help SMEs and even large companies increase profit. Also not all start-ups in the manufacturing industry or tech need to have come up with something innovative in order to become commercially successful. I propose that companies should be provided with a buffet of upcoming opportunities of recently expired patents and what profit margins there has been for manufacturing these products. Companies can then enter a market that has already proven to be profitable. Perhaps, at some companies even create a shift in the manufacturing of products.
Also, without needing to pay license fees, less successfully commercialized products based on patents becomes more profitable if the same production volume remain. It also enables a lower production level before turning into profit which also means a lower entrance level for companies. Obvious facts, but the point is to be early on and pointing out new opportunities
2 10 New Uses for Old Inventions. http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/repurposed-inventions/10-new- uses-for-old-inventions.htm

4. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
to large as small companies. To implement or develop procedures that enable advisers conduct these services effectively is an issue that should be discussed.
Of course, what has created an opportunity too many new, have created a challenge to someone else. For those European companies who have upcoming expiring patents on products need to have prepared to compete with reduced prices or need to manufacture high quality product in order to keep their prices. Large companies often have financial means and can buy competence to prepare for this change. Or they can choose to sell to another company. To offer governmental support that help innovative SMEs to prepare for this shift is beneficial.
For a government, from an employment point of view it is not always about creating new companies and jobs but also about keeping them at the current companies at as a low cost as possible. It is a support that could prove to be cost effective. And it does not necessarily have to be governmental agencies that provide the service. It is a service that could be bought from the private sector from companies as PWC.
Protection not possible (patents, copyright, design)
Throughout history, there have been many innovations that have helped people and society without a possibility to IP-protect. These can be found in new methods as in providing health to people by public sanitation. A more contemporary example in medical treatment is oral rehydration therapy to prevent dehydration. These both were examples on innovative new ways to take care of people. Evident, is that these innovations have had a profound impact and at least in public sanitation we find commercially successful companies.
In this scenario, I focus on old social innovations that are used in the health sector. In the health sector, innovations seek to improve treatment for people. But still, as in most other business sectors also in the health sector there are commercial aspects to consider. From a commercial point of view these innovations is best understood as focusing on finding cost effective ways to care for patients. Cost efficiency is the keyword here rather than focusing on increase in sale.
A historical example may be useful here to show the impact of inventions in care models. In the 1950s and early 1960s, an imaginative physician in Baltimore named Peter Safar realized that outcomes might improve if hospitals centralized the location of their sickest patients and increased the frequency of patient observation and treatment adjustments with a dedicated team. His innovation sparked the evolution of the intensive care unit (ICU). The basic concept then spread to many aspects of hospital care, giving rise to many successful variations on the theme, such as neonatal ICUs, burn units, and surgical ICUs. Hospital mortality for the sickest patients plunged. The concept of tailoring the design of clinical work to the needs of distinct patient groups continues to inspire hospital improvements. 3
It is a very important for EU and national governments to work with and embrace the potential that lays in old innovations that cannot hold IP-protection since they are such a large contributor to the development of society. And that does not just regard the health sector, but also many other sectors.
3 Reinventing Health Care Services. http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/reinventing_health_care_services

5. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
In EUs funding program Horizon2020, we find that EU try to address solving societal challenges and the funding program provide a possibility for new social innovations. It is an important development and will benefit many. When companies both can develop new innovations and also add on services that are based on old innovations that cannot hold IP- protection they have good possibilities to exploit these in order to become successful.
Moreover, new innovations cannot always replace old innovations in solving societal problems. It is therefore beneficial to also help companies who want to work with providing solutions by using old innovations as a method. It is evident, that there is a need to have this discussion on the national as well as the EU political agenda in order to find solutions for how to help the companies and governmental institutions that work with old innovations that cannot hold IP-protection.
Open source/innovations
As mentioned above, all innovations cannot be protected. And sometimes innovators opt to open source it or make it to an open innovation. The difference lays in that it might had been possible to seek a patent on an open sourced innovation but not on those who are not possible to protect as mentioned in the example above.
Most innovations are not patented. Some claim that these could constitute of as much as 90% of all innovations.4 In a sense these are all open sourced or should they be called open innovations. Examples on these are the penicillin, x rays, ether (anaesthetic), evidence based medicine, vaccines, oral rehydration therapy, DNA structure, monoclonal antibody and the list goes on.
In particular, in IT there is a large movement of advocates that opt not to patent. But still, we find many examples on open sourced software that holds innovations that are commercial successes.5 Also when these innovations have become old many of these are very relevant and such an example is Linux. The defining component of Linux is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on 5 October 1991 by Linus Torvalds. As of June 2013, more than 95% of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers run some variant of Linux.6
On the desktop, Linux is almost non-existent, with <1% market share. Desktops are all about Windows and to a much smaller extent OSX. Android (which is derived from a Linux kernel) fares far better in the tablet space and have 30% of the market share. In the mobile/smartphone space, Linux derived OSes are the clear market leaders, with double-digit leads over iOS and Blackberry.7
4 “Reassessing patent propensity: evidence from a data-set of R&D awards 1977-2004,” by Roberto Fontana, Alessandro Nuvolari, Hiroshi Shimizu, and Andrea Vezzulli (Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon, Working Papers series number 2013/09; Mar. 2013)
5 As discussed in the paper “Open source from science to society” patented software and open sourced software co-exist with commercial companies earning profit on these two different approaches. Moreover, it is not uncommon that companies as Apple, SAP, Yahoo and Facebook combine these two approaches.
6 Linux. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
7 Linux Market Shared Broken Down BY Product Segment. http://hothardware.com/News/Linux-Market- Shared-Broken-Down-By-Product-Segment/#!bMJn1I

6. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
A more recent example is Ubuntu. Ubuntu is based on free software and named after the Southern African philosophy of ubuntu which often is translated as "humanity towards others". According to some metrics, Ubuntu is the most popular desktop Linux distribution to date. Development of Ubuntu is led by Canonical Ltd., a company owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth.8
Although, the Ubuntu developers do not yet have much old innovations due to it was released as late as 20 Oct 2004 they are worth to mention. It is because they have a large following of developers that will hold old innovations that are free to use for other programmers when these develop new innovations. From a commercial point of view the non-patent approach most often lower prices for the programmers. That will give plenty of old innovations from Ubuntu that in return should lower the prices on products used by you and me.
The advocates for open source or open innovation should be properly acknowledged as one of the cornerstones in developing society. There has been and still are plenty of commercially successful companies that use open source or open innovation that are based on old innovations. As evident, from the examples these can be found in a diversity of industry sectors as in pharmacy, health care and IT.
It is important for EU and national governments to reap the rewards there is in having many companies based on running businesses on old open innovations and open source.
Advice all
In general, it is important to keep an eye on what old innovations can contribute to companies and society. But what mechanisms can be put in place?
Advice all - national level
To have an active matching from government between old innovations and companies will make these companies more competitive. The professionals in these governmental agencies
8 Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(operating_system) AND Canonical and Ubuntu. http://www.ubuntu.com/about/canonical-and-ubuntu

7. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
or if it is a service bought from the private sector will provide knowledge that existing companies can seek or start-ups can ask to get access too. For these professionals it would require an understanding of the commercial potential in old innovations and soon to be old innovations. Besides providing this service when asked for by companies, it would also be possible to have open days for those interested in and present upcoming innovations that has patents that recently expired.
Advice all - EU level
In Europe, we find the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) and the European Business and Innovation Centre Network that has a cross-border network that are used for cooperation. It would be beneficial to discuss how these two organizations can be used for helping companies find old innovations to add-on to their product portfolio.
Perhaps, the professionals in these two organizations can offer to examine old innovations invented in Europe that could be commercially successful. In the next stage these professionals offer the same service from key states outside Europe before later embracing other states. It would be a European cross-border service.
Currently, we find national governmental agencies all over Europe as United Kingdom Trade and Investment in UK that provide services to companies who want to export. These help companies with contacts in other countries and some of these also do market analyses on request from companies.
As evident, to provide a service that match old innovations with companies can be provided with a national point of perspective, but it could prove to be beneficial to build up European cross-border cooperation. Especially, for the smaller EU member states with less financial resource it would be beneficial.
Final remark
In relation to this paper, I will write another paper about Non-IP parks that specializes on the possibilities for parks that focus on helping companies with old innovations and also open innovation or open source.

8. Jan Softa @ Somerco Date: 2014-08-31
Draft proposals
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 1 - Designated tax to science
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 2 – Strategy to support the software industry
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 3 – Actions to support women in ICT
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 4 – Going abroad–Competitive assets
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 5 – Business incubators, financial recycling and incentives into reward
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 6 – Standardization as a tool to increase competitiveness
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 7 – Different types of innovations
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 8 – Open source from science to society
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 9 – Crowd sourcing and crowd funding
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 10 – Green VAT for business
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 11 - Keep talent in Europe
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 12 - Research leftovers
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 13 - Science Parks-Specializations
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 14 - Patent trolls
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 15 – Science e- Parks
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 16 – Expansion options
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 17 – The locally developed infrastructure.
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 18 – Treaty (Knowledge transfer)
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 19 – Different types of infrastructure
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 20 – Build infrastructure (In progress)
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 21 – Energy infrastructure (elsewhere) (In progress)
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 22 – Quick market entry (Medical)
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 23 – Innovation, Commercialization, Growth
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 24 – External energy dependencies (In progress)
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 25 – Old innovations
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Part 26 – The Non-IP Parks (In progress)
Enhance the competitiveness of EC member states Overview – Old and new key areas in order to increase the competitiveness of the industry (In progress)
Input on threats against information society