FROM THE CENTRE LICENSING

Beyond internal technology transfer, opportunities abound for mining companies to licence or sell their operating improvements to other mining companies or suppliers. For example, a friction washer developed by Brunswick Mining & Smelting was licensed to a supplier and now also produces revenue for Brunswick. Opportunities are lost to suppliers and to other companies that copy unpatented innovations. This is a tricky problem to overcome, since one characteristic of minor technical improvements is that they are relatively simple and portable. With regard to licensing and patents, another issue is determining how the innovating employees should share in the resulting revenues. REFERENCES Hollander, S., 1965: The Sources of Increased Efficiency: A Study of DuPont Rayon Plants, Boston: MIT Press. Richardson, P., 1985: Employee Involvement, Productivity and Cost Management, in Mining Productivity, Proceedings No. 16, ed. M. Wojciechowski, Centre for Resource Studies, February. Kudar, R. P. et al., 1986: Management Versus Labour: Conflicting Attitudes to Productivity, Working Paper (Revised), The University of Western Ontario, School of Business Administration. David Johnston is on faculty at the School of Business and Economics, Wilfred Laurier University. As of July 1, he will be assistant professor, Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University. More information on the Noranda study is available from the author. A version of this paper was published in the Centre for Resource Studies publication called CRS Perspectives. The Centre for Resource Studies is affiliated with Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. — 30 —