The Australian Government has launched a digital intellectual property marketplace designed to provide Australian businesses with easy access to public sector research. SourceIP has been developed by IP Australia, and provides a means for public sector patent owners to signal their willingness to license, sometimes at no cost, innovations in their key areas of technology.
IP Australia explains that:
‘SourceIP is particularly focused on making it easier for Australian businesses, including small businesses, to access innovation and technology generated by the publicly funded research sector in Australia. The platform has been specifically created to help expose potential collaboration opportunities to businesses seeking to work with public sector research partners and to facilitate quick and easy contact.’1
Australia’s forty university commercialisation and technology transfer offices host content on SourceIP, including the Group of Eight (The University of Western Australia, Monash University, Australian National University, The University of Adelaide, The University of Melbourne, UNSW, The University of Queensland and the University of Sydney), Bond University, LaTrobe University, Macquarie University, Curtin University, RMIT University, Deakin University, UniSA, Flinders University and others.
Also hosting content are leading Commonwealth research organisations, including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). Additional organisations include medical research institutes, such as the Centenary Institute of Cancer Medicine and Cell Biology, the Children’s Medical Research Institute, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Neuroscience Research Australia, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.
The SourceIP platform allows businesses to easily search by technology field and organisation, and provides a listing of all relevant patent families for those organisations, with full bibliographic detail and links to patent specifications. The organisation has an opportunity to mark patent families that are available for license. To date, the SourceIP platform shows 182 live patent families available to license. CSIRO, UNSW, DSTG, Monash University, Macquarie University, University of Newcastle, The University of Sydney, and Griffith University account for 70% of those available patent families.
If you would like assistance in locating and assessing intellectual property on SourceIP in technology areas that may be relevant to your business, please contact your POF patent attorney or contact us at attorney@pof.com.au
References
1 IP Australia. (2014). About Source IP. Available from: https://sourceip.ipaustralia.gov.au
