The Wall Street Journal-20080114-Companies to Share Eco-Friendly Patents
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Multinational companies including International Business Machines Corp., Sony Corp., Pitney Bowes Inc. and Nokia Corp. will unveil today what they call a patent-sharing plan for companies to donate intellectual property that improves the environment.
The project, dubbed the "Eco-Patent Commons," builds on the experience of the open-source software movement in which programmers around the world freely share their computer programs, said David Kappos, IBM's assistant general counsel for patent law, who helped design the system. He said that "the advantage of using this commons approach is efficiency, scale and visibility."
The commons will be administered by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a Geneva-based group that includes some 200 of the world's biggest companies.
Intellectual property rights to technology that solves environmental problems have been a contentious issue in negotiations over the Kyoto Protocol -- which attempts to combat global warming -- with U.S. negotiators resisting proposals to force companies to give away technology. John Coequyt, energy policy specialist with the Washington office of Greenpeace, an environmental group, said that the commons is "potentially a way to solve the problem by voluntary action."
The founders of the commons are donating about 30 patents to get it started. IBM -- which last year won 3,125 U.S. patents, more than any other company -- is donating several, including one for recyclable protective-packaging material for delicate electronic parts. Unlike commonly used foam peanuts, the material can be recycled in the same waste stream as the cardboard box that contains it.
Nokia is donating a patent for methods of recycling obsolete cellphones into noncommunicating calculators and personal digital assistants.
Some of the donated patents aren't directly environmental. Pitney Bowes, the mailing-systems maker, donated a 1996 patent for a design that protects electronic scales from being damaged when they are overloaded. Pitney Bowes says it got out of the scale-making business several years ago. Angelo Chaclas, deputy general counsel of Pitney Bowes, said the patent has environmental implications, because "if you have a technology that extends the life of electronics, you keep it out of the waste stream." He said that Pitney Bowes, which has a portfolio of 3,400 patents, was eager to support the commons in hopes of getting access to other companies' patents that it might be able to use.
Mr. Kappos of IBM said that any company can join the commons by contributing a patent. But all patents offered are available to anyone in the world on a Web site that will be maintained by the World Business Council.
Mr. Kappos said that while individual patents that are donated may not be bringing in licensing revenue, or be protecting actual products, donating them still represents a gift of value. "We're pledging that we won't assert the patents that are put into the commons against anyone who is using them in an environmentally friendly way."
