The event featured a variety of discussions on how companies can leverage intellectual property and on the changing landscape of technology development.

The United States has lost its technological hegemony, Chesbrough said. Companies need to leverage overseas talent not because of low labor costs, but to tap brain power, he said.

"If you're working at an organization or a company and you're not doing that, my suggestion to you is that's an error," said Chesbrough.

Touting the concept of open innovation, Chesbrough said companies can license technology to another company or bring in external technologies to target a new marketplace. With open innovation, companies use a theoretical funnel that lets technologies flow in and out, he explained.

He cited business models that could be used to benefit from IP, such as an orphan recovery program, in which technology not fitting with a big company's business model can be used elsewhere. Acquiring IP from failed startups also is a possibility, as are sale-leaseback programs for IP.