Offside
Lado B

Don't drop the ball, Bruno Matias!

Corporate

INESC TEC, in the words of our partners – Statement by Pedro Pires from Loyal Advisory Company.

Limelight

"It is never enough to stress that the success that INESC TEC’s activity is surrounded with, is mostly, (if not totally) due to the human resources that makes part of it.", Catarina Carvalho (SCOM)

Serious Thinking

«In SAL, we transform Science into protected technological advances.» Daniel Vasconcelos

Gallery of the Uncommon

The visits, which took place at INESC TEC's auditorium A, are constantly disturbed by people...

Where are you now?

Every month INESC TEC sends highly qualified individuals into the market...

Jobs 4 the Boys & Girls

In this section, the reader may find reference to public announcements made by INESC TEC offering grants, contracts and other opportunities.

Biptoon

More scenes of how life goes merrily on...

 
 

Serious Thinking

Serious Thinking

Never was anything great achieved without danger

by Daniel Vasconcelos*

I'm using Machiavelli's words to start off this “Serious Thinking” issue, an Italian Renaissance politician who also teaches us that “it is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both”. The same pragmatism that Machiavelli shows us is the same pragmatism that can be useful in our scientific dream of making the world a better place. That's where SAL, the Technology Licensing Office, comes in. The service in which I work and where “nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed” – Lavoisier.

The technological innovation that is indeed changing our lives didn't follow the romantic script of those "eureka" moments and of its scientific dissemination. Most of the times, it appears from the risk taken by entities that work in the hope of seeing their efforts being compensated by exclusivity, such exclusivity being granted by the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Let's be pragmatic – nowadays, 87% of the value of the listed companies (S&P 500) comes from their intangible assets (IP) – almost the opposite of what was seen in 1975 (17%) [1]. The numbers show us that no one is going to invest in the development of new technology-based products and services if there aren't Intellectual Property Rights to protect the investor.

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) refer to patents, brands, utility models but also to copyrights, which have a huge importance in something so pivotal to INESC TEC such as in the case of software. This is what we do in SAL, we transform Science into technological advances protected by different types of IPR's, capable of being valued. By being valued, let's not think only of financial return.

For example, SAL helps many researchers in choosing the best way to release their software with open source licenses, this way optimising their impact and recognition. Our activity is a contact sport and it is no coincidence that we have a picture of Mike Tyson in our office (A3.9) with the phrase “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”, a classic from management courses. We try to stay close to the researchers in order to help them in protecting, and sometimes even repositioning their research works before the painful clash with reality. A researcher doesn't know when he invented something and that is particularly true in the software area.

In a Machiavellian way, we want INESC TEC to be loved by the Science that it does and disseminates but also “feared" by those who want to take possession of the effort and the development for which they didn't contribute, because that's the only way to reach great achievements.

It was from great achievements that 2018 was made - INESC TEC was the 2nd Portuguese entity with the most patent applications within the European Patent Office, saw six patent applications being given in Europe, USA, Japan and South Korea, amassed EUR 600.000 in the last two years to fund the future of 13 patent families and saw its portfolio increase to 21 active patent families in the ICT and medical technology fields.

I can't wait for 2019...

 

[1] - http://www.oceantomo.com/ocean-tomo-300

 

 

* Collaborator of the Technology Licensing Office (SAL)