INNOVATION SERVICES

Being good at what you do is only a start. To stay ahead, you need to expand on your core capabilities to find new markets, new products and new sources of revenue. The Material Solution is ready to help you develop new product concepts, manage existing IP, evaluate potential patent white space and develop technology roadmaps to increase your sales and profitabiity.  Our specific offerings are:

Concept Generation:  Our principal consultant comes from one of the most well respected "think tanks" in the world where he worked for 30 years.  During that time he became well versed with many of the leading concept generation practices including TRIZ, nominal group technique, DELPHI and interactive group.   All of these techniques have common elements which include a non-judgemental, brain storming activity to generate the pool of ideas (divergent thinking) and a more analytical evaluation phase to focus in on the ideas worth pursing (convergent thinking).  We are able to either coach and facilitate these activities or be active participants to bring our concepts into the pool.  As coaches and facilitators we will help organize the meeting, collect and record the concepts, work with the group to define the evaluation criteria and help rank the concepts for action.  If you prefer that we be active participants in the ideation activity we can provide experts that will contribute their background and experience to the pool of ideas. 

Intellectual Property and Licensing Consultation:  Our experts have a strong history in licensing of technologies and can assist in developing licensing strategies, deal structuring and offering advice on negotiation tactics.  We are not lawyers and do not give legal consultation but we can offer you the benefit of our experience in negotiating over 10 successful licenses in the area of material technology and production.  Questions regarding reasonable licensing fees, royalty rates, ways to ensure diligence and other issues can be addressed.

Patent White Space Analysis:  It should be noted that we are not lawyers and do not give legal advice but our experts for many years have evaluated patent portfolios to determine "white space" or areas that could be pursued for developing patentable technology.  This analysis is done with regard to a specific technology area and looking at the claims of a body of patents in comparison to the technology in question.  While this is not a guarantee that a patent can be obtained it can suggest ways to structure claims that have a better chance of being granted.

Technology Roadmaps: Technology roadmaps can be a very useful and powerful way to plan the development of a technology platform and the accompanying products or services that are within that platform.  A typical technology roadmap is shown below and its purpose is to capture the relationship of assessable markets, finished products and/or services, the underlying technology or capability, development needs and required resources over the timeline of the development.  We are very skilled in developing such roadmaps and can assist your team in organizing and producing technology roadmaps to communicate and guide development. 

Example of Technology Roadmap