Today is Earth Day, "a time of year when the voice of the environmentally conscious is at its loudest. It's a time to a talk about the state of the planet, energy innovation and what all of us in the mainstream can do to help curb climate change."
Earth Day Network is a driving force steering environmental awareness around the world. Founded by the organizers of the first April 22 Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network promotes environmental citizenship and year round progressive action worldwide. Through Earth Day Network, activists connect change in local, national, and global policies. Earth Day Network’s international network reaches over 17,000 organizations in 174 countries, while the domestic program engages 5,000 groups and over 25,000 educators coordinating millions of community development and environmental protection activities throughout the year. Earth Day is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half billion people participate in Earth Day Network campaigns every year.
Earth Day seems as good a day as any to note the contributions of leading corporations that have joined together in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to make their patents available for the common good.
Eco-Patent Commons, launched by IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), was founded on the commitment that anyone who wants to bring environmental benefits to market can use these patents to protect the environment and enable collaboration between businesses that foster new innovations.
Since the launch of the Eco-Patent Commons in January 2008, almost a hundred eco-friendly patents have been pledged by nine companies representing a variety of industries worldwide: Bosch, DuPont, IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh, Sony, Taisei and Xerox.
We hope more companies join in the Eco-Patent Commons and that this important initiative expands beyond patents to include technical disclosures of innovations that would be helpful to the environment and the future of planet earth, making every day "earth day."
The idea of expanding the scope of the Eco-Patent Commons under the auspices of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development by creating a new system of technical disclosure publication including eco-friendly innovations not yet patented, which we blogged about here and here, has piqued more interest following the article by IP consultant Nancy Edwards Cronin in her Strategic Thinking column on Greenbiz.com.
Whether or not you agree with her argument about issued patents, her idea of adding invention disclosures to the Commons would almost certainly benefit the initiative and its participants by increasing the value and utility of the available green technology. Of course, no independent or targeted donations to the Commons would be necessary because enabled invention disclosures are by definition in the public domain and available to everyone. Instead, to make the technology available to greentech firms, it would just need to be made accessible via the Commons. Broadly, Cronin’s idea could be implemented in one of three ways. Either companies who publish environmentally-beneficial technology in these disclosures could provide the publication information or citations to the Commons, the Commons itself could monitor the disclosure publications, or the publications could alert the Commons of relevant published disclosures. However it’s done, I can’t argue with increasing green idea and technology sharing.
Defensive Publishing denotes the disclosure of an invention with the purpose of creating prior art, and thus to prevent the granting of a patent. Regarding a worldwide initiative to "promote the progress" in the interests of the global environment, as envisioned by the the Eco-Patent Commons--beyond patents--including innovation and inventions not before patented, one must consider the different effects of "prior art" in various patent jurisdictions around the world.
US patent law is somewhat more restrictive in its definition of state of the art by excluding from patentability only those inventions that were “known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent” (US Patent Act, Section 102a). Public use in Europe would thus not be sufficient to establish prior art in the US. In addition, use or description of the invention must have taken place before the invention by the applicant or, as Section 102.b specifies, one year or more before filing of the application. This “first-to-invent” rule has an ambiguous effect on the attractiveness of defensive publishing. On the one hand, a DP may not pre-empt a patent application if the latter is filed less than 12 months after the DP and if it claims an earlier date of invention. In such a case, a DP might even trigger a competitor’s patent application. On the other hand, a DP can help to establish priority for an inventor, who maintains the option to file for a patent within the following year.
Consistent with the objectives of the Eco-Patent Commons, any similar system of technical disclosure publication should go beyond existing defensive publishing strategies to include a legally binding waiver of any option to file for a patent within the year following such publication.
We'd propose a definitive publication system for technical disclosures of eco-friendly innovations that would effectively relinquish all rights of the publisher to apply for a patent of the invention disclosed, anywhere in the world, anytime in the future.
In her Strategic Thinking column on GreenBiz.com, Nancy Edwards Cronin recommends Growing the Eco-Patent Commons to Truly Promote Green Innovation. While lauding the objectives of this green initiative, she suggests that the Eco-Patent Commons itself is in need of some innovation if it truly hopes to accomplish its goal: sharing useful environmental technologies for "the greater good."
The problem is that the project includes only "patents" and not the undisclosed innovations and trade secrets within the intellectual property of companies and independent inventors that have not yet been patented. Many of those inventions might better be published now to promote the progress of science and the useful arts for a sustainable environment and ecology for the future.
To compensate for these drawbacks and make the Eco-Patent Commons as useful and powerful as it can be, the initiative requires expansion to offer truly recent inventions that have not spent years in the patent application process. This involves widening the scope of the initiative to include non-patented inventions that have yet to be marketed and made public.
One way to make these inventions available is through enabled invention disclosures. An enabled invention disclosure (also called “defensive publication” or “technical bulletin”) is a written description of an invention that ideally has the same degree of detail as an issued patent. Therefore a well-written invention disclosure provides sufficient information to the reader to understand and use the invention.
Many companies successfully use enabled invention disclosures as part of their intellectual property (IP) strategies. Companies frequently have inventions that they do not wish to patent because the patent process is so expensive, including invention development costs, legal preparation and patent prosecution fees. However, companies also wish to prevent competitors from patenting those same inventions.
By using enabled invention disclosures to publish the invention, companies accomplish both goals: they save the cost of patenting but they also establish a “prior art bar” to obtaining the patent and make it impossible for competitors to claim it the invention as their own. Several Web site forums exist for publishing inventions, including www.ip.com and www.researchdisclosure.com.
The Eco-Patent Commons should be expanded to include these enabled invention disclosures. Many inventions that companies deem non-strategic for patent application and instead decide to publish may be excellent candidates to be donated to the Eco-Patent Commons. These published inventions would be truly new, fresh and useful -- a good first step to creating the true springboard for green innovation that the Eco-Patent Commons was meant to be.
We couldn't agree more.
As indicated in our original post about the Eco-Patent Commons, IP.com would really like to contribute to this very worthwhile initiative by providing the publishing platform to broaden the scope of the project to include innovations and inventions useful to the environmental movement well beyond those patents that have been contributed by the project's founding companies, some of which are already using the IP.com Prior Art Database. We've got technologies available that could very quickly take this green initiative to a whole new level of global participation.
The Platform, Cisco's official blog, has a post announcing that Nobel Laureate, Oscar Winner and former Vice President Al Gore will join Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers in a virtual conversation on climate change and technology innovation on Wednesday, March 19, 2008.
They will be joined by Cisco's Sue Bostrom, EVP, Chief Marketing Officer, in a Cisco TelePresence session before a live audience at VoiceCon to examine the critical role that technology and innovation can play in mitigating climate change. Some topics they will cover include: the latest observations of the effects of global warming and the impact of information technology; how businesses can reduce greenhouse gas emissions through innovation; and, how the technology industry can help create the most sustainable model for addressing global climate change.
Someone might care to ask if Cisco plans to join IBM, Nokia, Pitney-Bowes and Sony in the Eco-Patent Commons announced a few weeks ago.
While we're on the topic, and have the former Vice President's ear, we wonder what Al Gore thinks of the Eco-Patent Commons and the recent paper "A New Mindset for Corporate Sustainability", sponsored by Cisco and BT that reportedly concluded:
Organisations that wish to grow profitably in the future must focus their efforts to benefit shareholders, society and the environment simultaneously. Concentrating on any one of these areas at the expense of the other two may compromise a business's long-term success. A focus on sustainability provides the best means to implement this triple-pronged strategy simultaneously, enabling organisations to innovate, differentiate themselves and succeed.
9. Join the networks
A growing number of organisations, networks and other bodies dedicated to encouraging sustainable business are emerging. Get involved with groups such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the UN Global Compact, the International Business Leaders Forum and similar local bodies. Take part in sustainability investment rankings and monitors such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the Corporate Responsibility Index.
That's probably a good indication that we might expect Cisco to contribute to the Eco-Patent Commons, too.
Notably, while the academic team collaborating to produce the paper "A New Mindset for Corporate Sustainability" met in person several times, apparently no international travel was required. Using Cisco TelePresence, the high-definition virtual meeting solution, the group was able to come together and discuss their research as though in a conventional face-to-face meeting, whilst reducing travel so as to minimise any negative environmental effects of the collaboration.
The Eco-Patent Commons is an initiative to create a collection of patents that directly or indirectly protect the environment. The patents will be pledged by companies and other intellectual property rights holders and made available to anyone, free of charge. The Commons is a resource for connecting those who have had success with a particular challenge in a way that benefits the environment and those who are facing similar challenges.
With the launch of the Eco-Patent Commons earlier this week, four companies -- IBM, Nokia, Pitney-Bowes and Sony -- joined with the World Business Council on Sustainable Development to do something almost unprecedented: they agreed to relinquish their control over inventions that could benefit the planet in order to spur innovation for the greater good.
Thus begins the transcript of a very interesting podcast interview with IBM's Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Wayne Balta, on GreenBiz Radio.
Wayne Balta: The Eco-Patent Commons is a first of its kind initiative under which we at IBM and some other like-minded companies are partnering with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development to create a place where patents related to the environment can be pledged by the patent holder so that others around the world can access them and use them free of charge.
The basic premise here is that in the environmental arena, sharing knowledge and technology has the great potential to better address the world's problems. That there exists no organized way today to do this on a global basis. That leading businesses may hold patents that are not an essential source of business income to them. And that by sharing them with others on a global basis, both developed and developing countries, it can help people develop in a more sustainable way. And for those who pledge the patents it might also need to lead to new opportunities for innovation and collaboration with others, whom you might not otherwise reach.
...you know, pledging patents for free use by others is not necessarily a common way companies think about their portfolio of intellectual property and we at IBM recognize that. Now, we at IBM probably have as much or more experience as anyone with this because we have also done prior patent pledges. So we recognize that as we've spoken to others about the idea that it isn't something that you're innately thinking of doing. But as people think through the best use of some of this IP and the opportunities that could come out of a commons like the one we're creating, many have realized and others I believe will realize that it can be a win-win situation.
It can be a win for innovators in other parts of the world, who might look at these ideas and further them and use them as the basis of additional solutions. And it can be a win for those who pledge because it could open up opportunities to collaborate with people that you might not otherwise have collaborated with.
In a joint press release, other member companies of the Eco-Patent Commons today issued the following statements:
Donal O’Connell, Director of Intellectual Property, Nokia, said, “Environmental issues have great potential to help us discover the next wave of innovation because they force us all to think differently about how we make, consume and recycle products. From Nokia we have pledged a patent designed to help companies safely re-use old mobile phones by transforming them into new products like digital cameras, data monitoring devices or other electronic items. Recycling the computing power of mobile phones in this way could significantly increase the reuse of materials in the electronics industry.”
Angelo Chaclas, Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Intellectual Property and Technology Law at Pitney Bowes, said, “The Eco-Patent Commons offers an effective framework to develop and make available technology that helps combat climate change and reduce the release of carbon dioxide. Our objective for the Eco-Patent Commons is to promote the spread of environmentally conscious technologies that make conservation and preservation a priority.”
Hidemi Tomita, General Manager of Sony Corporation’s Corporate Social Responsibility Department, said, “To more effectively protect the environment, it is time for business to join efforts rather than tackling the issue alone. We truly believe this joint effort with our peers will mark a significant step and help transfer innovative ideas and technologies across industries and beyond to developing countries. We are excited to launch this platform to share technologies that will bring about positive changes in the environment.”
These ideas are exemplary of a new wave of thinking described in a recent blog post on Open Innovators. "Companies need to get a lot better at bringing external ideas and knowledge in from the outside, while at the same time allowing internal ideas not being used to flow outside the organization."
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-led, global association of some 200 companies dealing exclusively with business and sustainable development. The Council provides a platform for companies to explore sustainable development, share knowledge, experiences and best practices, and to advocate business positions on these issues in a variety of forums, working with governments, non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations. Members are drawn from more than 35 countries and 20 major industrial sectors.
Get the FAQs and download the Brochure of the Eco-Patent Commons in pdf here.
At IP.com Inc., we'd like to get involved in support of the Eco-Patent Commons project to expand this initiative to include the sharing of innovative ideas and technologies that directly or indirectly protect the environment, which have not yet been patented but are otherwise in the prior art and knowledge of the member corporations, the scientific community, and academia.
IP.com's Prior Art Database technology could be made readily available, free of charge, as a customized repository of global innovation in support of the Eco-Patents Commons. How amazing would that be?
Deep in a dumpster lay two hundred years of patent lithographs that the US Patent Office discarded when they went digital. Out went the handwritten examiner notes and fine ink drawings on patents by Tesla, Edison, Bell, Goddard, Farnsworth and Carlson - masters of innovation who lived in far more challenging economic times.
Randy Rabin and I have shared with the world 140 of these original hand drawn lithographs in a book Drawing On Brilliance. Most have never been seen by the public before. Each holds the secret to innovation success – how to build products that will change the world.
Accelerating Innovation With Search
Think about this. There have been a mere 360 years between Galileo's discovery of the sun's turning on its axis and the first moon landing. Then less than 100 years between a time when the world's roads were made of dirt and the invention of the Internet. We are on a steep trajectory of success in solving global problems.
So drawing on the brilliance of the innovators who brought us this far, we can accelerate the rate at which we successfully build products that change the world.
For example, success at controlled flight eluded the likes of Galileo, DaVinci and hundreds who followed them. So what was it that two bicycle shop repairmen from Ohio named Wright did differently that would then serve to raise the standard of living around the globe? What approach did they take that centuries of geniuses before them did not?
Search! With no engineering degrees and limited financial resources they began a profoundly systematic search, (and without the benefit of the internet).
Dear Sirs (letter to The Smithsonian):
I am about to begin a systematic study of the subject in preparation for practical work which I expect to devote what time I can spare from regular business. I wish to obtain such papers as Smithsonian Institution has published on this subject, and if possible a list of other works in print in the English language. I am an enthusiast, but not a crank in the sense that I have some pet theories as to the proper construction of a flying machine.
I wish to avail myself of all that is already known and then if possible add my mite to help on the future worker who will attain success. I do not know the terms on which you send out your publications but if you will inform me of the cost I will remit the price.
Yours truly,
Wilbur Wright
Before building a single model they looked at centuries of prior art, dissecting the patterns of failure as carefully as the patterns of success as far back as Leonardo DaVinci. They used mapping, visualization, and had completed a painstaking analysis of as much available scientific information and technical intelligence as they could find.
How does starting with search ensure product success?
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Blawg Review #254 features links with information about International Women's Day, National Women's History Month and the 30th anniversary of the National Women's History Project.
Confidential business and trade secret information is more than the stuff of corporate espionage. It is the competitive edge of any business, regardless of size, and deserves protection. Set up the proper safeguards to protect you confidential and trade secret information and you’ll be able to pursue your legal remedies the way Home Depot recently did.
Public Patent Foundation ("PUBPAT") announced that it has released claim construction dictionaries authored by Dr. David Garrod (PUBPAT Senior Litigation Counsel) free of charge to the public.
Note: IPCom GmbH & Co KG is not to be confused with IP.com Inc., an unrelated corporation. Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, withdrew an antitrust complaint at the European Commission after German patent licensing company IPCom GmbH & Co KG said it’s committed to licensing its technology under fair terms.Nokia said in a statement today that it has achieved its “main objective” in the complaint, which was to make sure that IPCom offers its mobile-phone patents under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
"Genius is the act of solving a problem in a way no one has solved it before. It has nothing to do with winning a Nobel prize in physics or certain levels of schooling," says Seth Godin. "It's about using human insight and initiative to find original solutions that matter."
The Fortune 500's use of blogs, online video, and podcasts continues to increase, but Twitter was the social media channel of choice in 2009, according to a study by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and Financial Insite.
Discover a treasure trove of patent lithographs - discarded by the US Patent Office then rescued from destruction by Randy Rabin as he and Jackie Bassett uncover the secrets to innovation success behind the Wright Bros., Heddy Lamar, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, W.H. Carrier and others.
Inventors Eye, a new electronic publication by the United States Patent and Trademark Office is a bimonthly publication for the independent inventor community.
Jordan Furlong, hosting this week's Blawg Review on Stem's Law Firm Web Strategy blog, writes, "For a story that’s nearly 200 years old, Frankenstein feels powerfully modern, in part because it expresses the trepidation and occasionally the fear humanity still feels about the things it creates. From the cotton gin to Google Buzz, we marvel at the machines we invent and congratulate ourselves for our ingenuity. But lurking at the back of our minds is a deep uneasiness over whether we’re getting too good at building things simply because we can, and whether the next invention will be the one that gets away from us — whether next time, we’ll go too far." Read Blawg Review #252 at the link in the headline above to see the best of this week's legal blogs, including a link back to one of the posts on IP.com's blog, Securing Innovation.
"Who would have thought that an online community of patent researchers would even take off?" writes Oscar Bruce on the Patent Quality Review Blog. "For many people, patents are too dense to understand. They are filled with legal and technical jargon that no layman can probably digest. Yet, the diverse community of Article One Partners has grown tremendously since its launch in November 2008. What motivated all these Advisors to register on Article One?"
This Blawg Review comes to you from the Canadian Trademark Blog, resident in Vancouver, British Columbia – a blawg run by several of the talented trademark law practitioners at Clark Wilson LLP.
Recently, companies manufacturing in China have come across some costly and time-consuming trademark predicaments. It seems that certain players in the Chinese market are using the Chinese trademark system to swindle unsuspecting American companies.
Today is Earth Day, "a time of year when the voice of the environmentally conscious is at its loudest. It's a time to a talk about the state of the planet, energy innovation and what all of us in the mainstream can do to help curb climate change."
