Social Innovations Patents.

Abstract

The core of this paper is focused on establishing a Social Innovation Patent System for the coding, evaluation, certification and scaling-up social innovations. The system is framed under the Open Social Innovation framework. The architecture of this framework is built on three pillars: a) incubation modes, b) social innovation modes, and c) excubation modes. The dynamics of the model consist of three knowledge management processes: a) exploration, b) experimentation, and c) exploitation. The model has five practical implications: a) They promote the efficient allocation of public resources for social innovation, as they circumvent the duplication of social innovations by promoting their dissemination and exploitation; b) They facilitate the codification of innovative social practices and their scaling-up process; c) They raise the visibility and the social and technical appropriation of social innovations; d) They allow for the mapping of social innovations and impact statistics (regional and sectoral), and e) They contribute to shaping social innovation communities through the creation and exploitation of social innovation patents.
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