IBM leads Eco-Patent Commons push

By Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 15 January 2008 05:21

Strategy

IBM is playing a pioneering role in the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's program to open environmentally-responsible patents to the general community.

The Eco-Patent Commons was originally proposed at IBM's Global Innovation Outlook conference. The idea is that participants contribute to the Commons patents that have a direct or indirect environmental benefit. For example, they might cover methods of cleaning up existing pollution, or describe ways of making processes less harmful, such as replacing toxic solvents with water.

The initial contributors to the Commons are IBM (27 patents), Pitney Bowes (2), Nokia (1) and Sony (1).

IBM, the leading generator of US patents, has provided a variety of patents covering manufacturing technologies (eg, solvent recovery, and a water-soluble solder flux), recycling (eg, hard disk recycling, and a method for reusing printed media), and cleaning up waste streams (eg propylene carbonate, photoresists, solder masks, and mercury).

John E. Kelly III, senior vice president and director of IBM Research, said "In addition to enabling new players to engage in protecting the environment, the free exchange of valuable intellectual property will accelerate work on the next level of environmental challenges," said John Kelly III, senior vice president and director of IBM Research. "We strongly urge other companies to contribute to the Eco-Patent Commons."

Pitney Bowes has chipped in patents covering a maintenance algorithm for inkjet printers that takes into account usage patterns, and a design for multiple overload protections for scales. Presumably the environmental contribution of the latter is that it reduces waste due to broken scales.

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