Idle Patents Attract Entrepreneurs
Associated Press:
Dilip Kotecha figured his working days were over when he retired from the food-manufacturing industry. But after an unused patent for instant yogurt landed in his lap, he couldn’t resist turning the dormant technology into a business.
‘I would say our company wouldn’t even be there without that patent,’ the 59-year-old entrepreneur said.
Countless patents – including the one used to start up Kotecha’s company, Yokit – sit unused when companies decide not to develop them into products. Now, not-for-profit groups and state governments are asking companies to donate dormant patents so they can be passed to local entrepreneurs who try to build businesses out of them.
Kotecha’s patent covered the formulation of instant yogurt. Consumer-products company SC Johnson of Racine, Wis., was awarded it in 1984 but tabled its plans.
Instead of gathering dust, the donated patent spawned a startup that Kotecha hopes will revolutionize the vending-machine industry and provide snacks to troops overseas.
There are countless other patents that are promising but sitting idle, business developers say.
In fact, about 90% to 95% of all patents are idle, according to Ron Sampson, the secretary of the not-for-profit National Institute for Strategic Technology Acquisition and Commercialization in Manhattan, Kan.
‘These technologies represent an important national asset but the vast majority remain unused and eventually will be permanently abandoned,’ Sampson said. Full article.
AP Photo/Darren Hauck
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