The Increased Importance of Intellectual Property in Open Innovation Environments and its Role in Addressing City Challenges

The overall theme for the 2018 IASP World Conference hosted by Isfahan Science and Technology Town is "Towards sustainable cities and communities: Fostering innovation ecosystems. With respect to the topic “Open Innovation and City Challenges”, it has been noted that Science and Technology

Parks ("STPs") are increasingly involved in stimulating Open Innovation processes and, in this framework, are encouraged to provide solutions to the major challenges of cities today. This paper begins first by defining more precisely what Open Innovation actually means and by providing some success stories. Second, the paper addresses the increased importance of intellectual property rights ("IPRs") in an open innovation environment. The paper concludes with a discussion on the beneficial synergies between STPs / AOIs and companies in an Open Innovation ecosystem.