The patent
An invention engine patents faster than anyone can read. Making medicine in your own flat becomes infringement.
The Patent ApocalypseA big idea with 5 connected futures
The Permission Economy
We can make almost anything. Who will let us?
The usual question
What will cheap robots, food printers and AI inventors be able to make?
The question I asked
If machines can make almost anything, who decides what they’re allowed to make?
Four kinds of permission.
The licence
The robot could print the drug in six minutes. A licensing flag in its firmware says no.
Six MinutesThe certified cartridge
The food printer is free. The certified cartridges that make its food safe to eat are the business.
The Yum MachineThe store
The robot is cheap. Every skill is a download, and the store learns from every job.
RoboStoreEach starts with a good reason: rewarding invention, keeping food safe, making sure a medical procedure is done right. That is why people accept it. Then the holder collects on every use.
Why the rights compound.
Every use pays a fee, and every use teaches the rights-holder something. RoboStore turns what it learns from its suppliers into built-in features; an invention engine turns each discovery into the next patent. The suppliers help pay for the system that progressively acquires power over them.
Your next competitor may not be in your industry.
It may be the platform that turns your service into a download.
- Which of your capabilities will soon need someone else’s permission?
- What do your customers lose the day a payment or a licence lapses?
- Who learns from the work done on your behalf, and who owns what they learn?
- Where can you still own the relationship, rather than rent it?
Different worlds.
The same transformation.
The Patent Apocalypse
She made medicine in her flat. They sent the bomb squad.
Everyone expectsAI invention engines make discovery faster and cheaper for everyone.
Imagine invention engines generating new drugs, materials, processes and products faster than organisations can use them. The possibility looks like abundance.
Follow how it could happenRoboStore
A profession becomes an app. Then the app becomes a feature.
Everyone expectsRobots get an app store, like phones.
RoboStore finances cheap robots, controls access to the customers and keeps the learning generated by everybody’s applications. Manufacturers supply the bodies.
Follow how it could happenThe Yum Machine
Free dinner. The cartridges cost a fortune.
Everyone expectsFood printers pipe your own ingredients into shapes.
Why buy a machine to assemble dinner when a factory can assemble it and sell it to you in a tray?
Follow how it could happenCool Centres
Miss a payment, and the cool room won’t let you in.
Everyone expectsCities add trees and air conditioning.
A family pays every month for four places in a cooled shelter ten minutes from home. They have never used them.
Follow how it could happenCountry by Subscription
Switch countries without moving house.
Everyone expectsDigital citizenship helps people move.
What if membership providers bundled the services associated with a country across territorial boundaries?
Follow how it could happenFollow another connection.
Explore this question with your team.
What connects the changes
in your world?
Commission a paradigm exploration, a set of scenarios or a workshop with your team.