Austmine Chairman Alan Broome envisages a new era, one in which new technology plays a central role in controlling costs, with Australian innovators leading in technological advances in mining. So Australian businesses will need to become smarter at protecting their new technologies.
The biggest spenders of R&D money are the heaviest users of the patent system. These include IBM, Samsung, Microsoft, Toshiba, Siemens, Bosch, Matsushita, Toyota, LG and Huawei. There is no doubt that these companies regard a sound patenting philosophy (and careful maintenance of trade secrets) as critical to their success – they cannot afford R&D and then allow their competitors to appropriate the fruits of their innovative labor.
Anecdotally, the mining industry seems to have had it the other way around. Typically, innovation in mining has been a community event. Scientists and engineers move amongst organizations and share information from one employer with another. By overly liberal licensing or free access, many companies share solutions to problems with anyone having a similar problem. Particularly in the last decade, there was business for everyone, so the boom age fuelled complacency surrounding Intellectual Property.
As innovative technology becomes central to success and longevity in mining, so will the importance of protecting that technology increase. That’s not to say the Courts will become clogged with miners’ patent disputes. The main use of the patent system is not litigation, but rather respect for the rights of others and beneficial licensing of technology. Organisations will find they are able to offer new solutions to others, for commercially appropriate royalties or in return for an exchange of technology. The new breed of mining innovator will find the money spent on R&D will help them make more money, not by solving their problems or lowering their costs, but by generating licensing revenue or enabling access to others’ technology.
The Resources Industry group of Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick will be exhibiting at Austmine 2009. Our patent attorneys include chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, metallurgists and chemists, who have seen an increase in enquiries from mining industry clients early with their IP strategies for the new technological age.
Contact: greg.bartlett@pof.com.au