[This is a post by MMM guest blogger Gavin Artz]

“if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” – Henry Ford.

Commercialisation of intellectual property by creative practitioners has gone mostly unnoticed by the mainstream economy.  Artsactive have a small catalogue of patents that have been derived from creative practice, but as a standard revenue stream it is poorly explored.  At the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) we work with artists who are at the very forefront of science and emerging technology.  It was noticed that through the processes encouraged by ANAT, artists were creating intellectual property when they encountered a technical roadblock in their work.  They created code, machinery or processes in their endeavours to over come problems in achieving their creative vision.  These AncillaryIPs (Artz 2008) had been mostly overlooked, so a model was developed to attempt to harness this potential commercial benefit and, because ANAT works equally with the arts, sciences and technology, it quickly became apparent that it could be used in all these creative fields.  When presented, the AncilaryIPs Wave Diagram has been a light bulb moment for many.

The IP created in the AnciallyIPs process are like waves created on the ocean.  Waves are generated by the huge and complex energies of interlinked systems. For oceans in the natural world these are the earth’s rotation, weather systems, currents and geology.  Creative practitioners and those engaged in pure research are societies’ and the economy’s creative oceans.  They tap into the complexity of nature, existence, community, economy, politics, scientific laws and humanity.

Pure research are the oceans, the tools they create are the IP waves and we can see business and commercial opportunities as the surfers on these waves.

Surfers may or may not have a deep understanding of the processes that make the waves.  They don’t have to; all they have to know is a good wave when they see one.  They enjoy and benefit from the wave, but they also feel a connection with the ocean, they care for the ecosystem that gives them such great benefit. Surfers give back so they can keep riding the waves.  In essence this is the AncillaryIPs Wave Diagram and the AncillaryIPs concept.

Pure research is a creative place, where personal vision and curiosity push people to do the impossible.  This personal pursuit of a creative vision is paramount.  If we are not asking original questions then we will never seek new knowledge and we will never have to find the paths to that new knowledge.  Those engaged in pure research ask these as yet unthought of questions, it is this outstretching drive of pure exploration that means new and unique problems will be encountered and that new and unique solutions will be found to over come them.

As those engaged in pure research strike out to resolve their questions they come across technical roadblocks for which they need to find solutions.  This is succinctly demonstrated by Dr John O’Sullivan in his search for exploding black holes in the 1980’s as told by the ABC’s Cataylist “WIFI Windfall” program in October 2009.

“We were looking at hundreds of metres of film looking for small v shaped patterns in it …. And I’m I guess I’m inherently lazy so I was starting to think at that time hey there must be a better way of doing this.” - Dr John O’Sullivan interviewed for the ABC’s Catalyst program “WIFI Windfall” October 2009.

Dr O’Sullivan invented the Fast Fourier Transform Chip.

This often happens in the arts and sciences.  A tool is created to further the research, to create the art work, to resolve a problem.  From an IP perspective the research (the profound motivator for creative practitioners and those in pure research) is the ocean.  The tools that researchers create are the waves.  As a society we may respect the ocean, we may love that the ocean is there, but very rarely do we get to engage with what goes on in its depths.   The place that we do engage with the ocean is the waters edge.

We like to play in the waves.

The CSIRO, who Dr. O’Sullivan works for, was coming to terms with connecting portable computers and they envisioned and developed what would become WIFI today, but they had a problem, one that the Fast Fourier Transform Chip could resolve.  The wave (the Fast Fourier Transform Chip) that came from the ocean of pure research into black holes made WIFI possible.  Business, community and the CSIRO have been able to surf that wave to substantial financial benefit.

The metaphor has been well stretched, but it is valid.  Creative people, those engaged in pure research, drive commercial outcomes.  To put it another way, with out the ocean you will not have waves; with out waves surfers are left on the shore.  By looking at the tools that artists and scientists create in pursuit of their personal vision we can have both the pure research and the commercial.  In fact the tools created should be seen as the link between pure research and the commercial.   This is the simple essence of AncillaryIPs and it is a way of perceiving creative practice that benefit practitioners, culture, community and the economy equally.

Artz, G. “Artistic practice and unexpected intellectual property: Defining Ancillary IPs.” 2008. CHASS. http://www.chass.org.au/papers/PAP20080709GA.php . 20 April 2009.

Newby, J., 2009 “WIFI Windfall” ABC Cataylist. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm . 1st November 2009