On Wednesday, General Electric announced a partnership with Quirky, a New York-based startup that acts as a kind of social network for inventors. This makes sense for GE as it continues making its push into the so-called Internet of Things, which encompasses various types of devices connected to the Internet – all of which combine to create a constant stream of data regarding how they operate together.

As Quirky helps “turn vague ideas into marketable items, manufacturing them, and distributing them through stores like Best Buy and Target. GE is licensing hundreds of its patents to the company’s community and working directly to help identify particularly promising consumer uses of these patents. The number of patents that GE is making available is expected to grow into the thousands in the coming months,” explains The New York Times.

Thus, “the deal provides for GE to share in the revenue from resulting products. The company will thus have a chance to profit further from its intellectual property — say, for special coatings to protect industrial equipment from water damage, or cooling techniques for LED lighting systems — without having to figure out itself how such things might appeal to consumers,” the article adds.

So what’s in it for Quirky? “The inventors who work with Quirky, meanwhile, will have access to a deep library of technologies developed by GE for other uses. Ben Kaufman, Quirky’s founder, sees the partnership as a way to leverage patents in a positive way,” writes NYT.

“We’re making it really easy for owners of intellectual property, like GE, to explore new uses,” he said. “For them, it’s extra revenue with little risk, and for us it’s a whole new avenue of different types of invention.”