Licence to Chill
Unique business model
CrushPak® is only one of the products designed and brought to market by the company.
"Our business model is unique, not only within New Zealand, but also globally," says Commercialization Manager Bradley Mitchell. "We work with people with great ideas but who don't have the resources to bring them to market – we aim to bridge the gap between the masses of ideas out there and the market where these ideas can be utilised. The business is all about maximising the value of intellectual property."
With a new product idea, Inveratek is involved from the outset, assisting in the earliest stages of development and advising on the best way to obtain legal protection for the innovation, which may involve a variety of patent or other intellectual property rights. Just as importantly, the company advises on the commercialisation of a new technology or innovation, which is the real determinant of whether an invention becomes financially successful.
The company's founder and CEO, Paul Adams, is an experienced intellectual property attorney with an extensive legal background. Before founding the company, Mr Adams built and managed the University of Auckland's technology incubator the Icehouse, and spent several years working in Silicon Valley. Mr Adams is passionate about good design and believes that it must be valued by everyone involved with product development.
The chairman of Inveratek is Professor Henry Bolanos, a United States engineer well known for his invention of laparascopic surgery and a holder of many patents for surgical instrumentation and other products. Professor Bolanos is visiting professor at Yale University and at the University of Virginia, as well as at the University of Auckland.
Inveratek is funded by a small number of United States investors who have had a long-term association with the company and focus primarily on technology companies with high-growth potential. Ideas and innovations largely arrive at Inveratek from external sources, as do requests for advice, because the process of commercialisation is so complex. "An idea on its own has little value – it's how you go about commercialising it that makes the difference," says Mr Mitchell. "It has taken years for us to master the process of protecting and commercialising products."
Each case requires the company to consider many factors such as whether obtaining a patent is the best way forward (not always the case according to Mr Mitchell) or more extensive study of design registrations, trademarks and trade secrets is warranted. "Just what the organisation or inventor wants out of their technology, what their capabilities are and the amount of risk that they are prepared to take are all important considerations."
The company maximises the value of the product by targeting key players in each market and application space. This does not limit the company to having only one licensee per country, though this is currently the case in New Zealand for CrushPak®. The product is also licensed in parts of the United States and in Europe, where there can be multiple users in a single jurisdiction. Licensing gives the company the opportunity to be very flexible in how the ideas can generate value.
