Crowdsourcing: How is intellectual property important?

Crowdsourcing can currently be defined as "the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers" (Merriam Webster Dictionary).  However, the idea of crowdsourcing itself is not new and existed well before the age of the internet.  Here, we consider crowdsourcing and its merits and risks in the context of intellectual property. 

Why use crowdsourcing?

Crowdsourcing has the potential to open up new ideas and possibilities by harnessing ideas which would not otherwise have been realised.  In principle, crowdsourcing can facilitate results via outside-of-the box thinking and by increasing the number of minds applying themselves to a particular problem or challenge.