Innovation at IP Australia

Since its inception in November 2021, IPAVentures has undertaken several ventures. Each of these ventures have helped the agency to better understand its role in a changing operating environment.

TM Checker (2022)

A full product. This involved the development of an AI-assisted tool to check potential trade marks. This tool was targeted at small-to-medium enterprises who were deemed at risk of being unaware of the trade mark system or engaging too late. The aim was to increase the number of businesses making a deliberate decision about whether or not a trade mark was correct for them.

Generative AI and the IP system (2023)

A series of provocations. This 12-week discovery process resulting in a series of provocations to help reduce uncertainty about the potential ramifications of generative AI on the registered IP rights.

IP for Social Good (2023-2024)

A prototyping of concepts. This work involved an exploration of how the IP system might be used to achieve social outcomes as well as economic ones. It included the development and testing of 3 concepts for how that could be done in practice.

OpenIP (2024)

Discovery work and provocations. This 12-week discovery process resulting in a series of provocations and exploratory concepts for how the IP system might learn from open movements (such as open source) and vice versa.

IPAVentures is part of a broader portfolio of innovation activity happening across our organisation. IPAVentures focuses on innovation outside of the area of enhancement-oriented innovation:

• breakthrough not incremental innovation
• externally focused to address the needs of customers
• designed for the future of the IP system
• reducing uncertainty to help the agency executive have the confidence to invest (or not) in particular options.

IPAVentures applies a strategic, disciplined and rigorous approach, backed by its:

1. Strategic focus: We aim to design, build, and deliver breakthrough innovations.
2. Methodology: Our team employs a product-led, customer-centric innovation approach.
3. Governance: Projects are overseen by a dedicated Venture Board that helps ensure the work is guided by strategic needs.

Our approach is adapted from a business ventures approach, where new ventures are spun up alongside existing business operations. Applied in the public sector context, we focus on providing the space, time and resources to explore new opportunities and issues, while reducing the uncertainty around them as quickly (and cheaply) as possible. The aim is to move quickly when the uncertainty is greatest (i.e. when we know least about what might be needed, what might work or what would be useful). In this way, we can provide greater confidence for the agency about where to invest.

Our process focuses on the two phases of innovation and incubation, strengthening up promising new opportunities until they are ready to fend for themselves.

Innovation

• Identify the growth territory: a growth territory is a framing for new areas for opportunities that fit with the strategic needs of the agency. For instance, ‘Revisit our purpose’ was the frame the team used in 2023, which then led to three of our subsequent ventures.
• Scope the growth territory: undertaking research and gathering insights to help understand the opportunity space. This stage generally involves a lot of workshops, stakeholder interviews and research.
• Identify discrete opportunities: rapidly develop, iterate and refine a range of ideas under the growth territory and test and validate with internal and external stakeholders.
• Pitching: the team presents a shortlist of concepts to the Venture Board for their consideration, including what, how it would work, why now and why us, the potential impact, and ‘burden of proof’ questions (questions that would need to be answered to know whether the concept was worthwhile).
• Validate the concepts: the top two concepts are then further developed and tested. This stage involves identifying and quickly testing a range of hypotheses to help build an understanding of the viability, feasibility and desirability of the concepts.
• Pitching: the team presents a fuller and more detailed pitch back to the Venture Board for their consideration, including detailed examination of the key issues, what would be required from the agency for it to proceed (i.e. staffing or financial investment).
• Sometimes a concept may be deemed interesting and worth exploration through a 12 week set of discovery sprints rather than taking through to a ‘build’. This may be because the opportunity space is still uncertain and the key aim is to learn more (such as with the exploration of the potential ramifications of generative AI on the IP rights system).

Incubation

• Once, or if, the Venture Board chooses a concept to be built into something tangible, the team works through a stage-gated process to prototype and build out a minimum viable product.
• This product is then iteratively developed against a number of proof points, to provide the Venture Board the confidence they need to decide whether or not to continue with it, or to cease the activity.