Ideagoras -- cooperation markets for innovation in business

In ancient Greece, agoras were public commercial centers where citizens assembled to debate and barter. Modern-day agoras such as eBay enable buyers and sellers to freely negotiate and assign value to goods. Ideagoras, on the other hand, are open markets for innovation. Early-stage ideagoras are springing up in many industries, presenting an unprecedented opportunity to harness innovation outside the enterprise. Consider, for example, the increasingly active trade in technology components and IP rights. Companies used to seek patents to protect their physical products. Today, growing numbers recognize that new and potentially lucrative revenue streams can flow from IP as intangible as E=mc2.