It’s fairly cool that companies aren’t just using in-house talent these days. However, borrowing brainpower from contractors is not where things stop. Now, company InnoCentive, sponsored by drug maker Eli Lilly and Co., is posting bounties for anyone to solve problems that need solving. The venture, allowing other companies to post problems for the public to solve also, pay fairly well, considering the money is given for a solution, not an hourly rate. For foreign scientists on smaller payrolls, InnoCentive is a nice chance to make some money.
What bothers me about the whole thing is the patent – InnoCentive claims to hold a patent on the method for posting their bounties and getting answers to company-posed questions. To me, this is yet another violation of our patent system, right alongside one-click ordering and other online patent travesties.
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