Services, open innovation and intellectual property

This paper describes findings from an interview study that focused on knowledge and intellectual property (IP) management in the development of service innovations with external actors. A few studies are available in literature on the protection of knowledge and innovation in service business, but aspects relating to open innovation are scarce in these. Our research question is therefore: How do service firms manage their knowledge and IP in the development of innovations with external actors? A qualitative multiple case study approach with semi-structured interviews with 14 service organizations was used in the study. The findings show that open innovation as such is actively used in service firms, and various forms of knowledge and IP management are linked to it. The result means that service companies and service innovations cannot be considered a unified group: it is necessary to understand the specific type of service and then consider the management of IP and open innovation for this type of service.