Ideas Sent to You: Open Innovation, Hackathons, and the Submissions Nobody Wanted to Receive
By Casey Scott McKay ·
An organisation that invites ideas from outside creates an obligation it did not have before, and an organisation that receives them unasked creates a different one. This article works through both: the idea submission claims that survive the absence of any registrable right, the contract theories that do the real work, and why the evaluation record matters more than the submission terms. It covers hackathons and prize competitions, the contributor assignment problem that makes hackathon output unusable, the firewall discipline that protects internal development, and the commercialisation handover where most programmes fail. It closes with the choice every open innovation programme must make and usually avoids.
IP and Technology > IP and IT in Corporate Transactions | Article | Published 29 February 2024 - Updated 5 January 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Two problems that look the same
An organisation receives an email describing an invention and asking whether the company would be interested. Three years later the company launches a product with a similar feature and the sender sues.
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