It was announced today that IBM was granted 4,186 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2008.

The number is a record for Armonk-based IBM Corp. and marks the 16th year in a row that the computer giant has led the world in U.S. patents. IBM is the only company to top 4,000 patents.

The No. 2 patent holder, Samsung Electronics, was awarded 3,515 patents last year. No. 3 Canon obtained 2,114.

As part of today's announcement of its record patent count, IBM is also rolling out plans to publish more articles about its technology outside the patent process, thereby making them freely available.

Big Blue expects to increase by 50 percent the number of technical innovations published, to more than 3,000 articles in 2009.

Just as a patent can spur innovation, a publication does so without conferring exclusive rights on the inventor, said Manny Schecter, associate general counsel for intellectual property law for IBM.

"What we're saying here is that as innovation continues to grow, it's becoming more important to get more information, in addition to our patent portfolio, into the public knowledge. We want to do that to encourage innovation," Schecter said.

Some of IBM's technical articles are published in scientific journals, but many others are put online on sites such as IP.com, a Web registry that helps companies manage their intellectual property.

Schecter said IBM publishes articles in all of the same fields in which it receives patents - from microprocessors to software to business processes - but will emphasize technology it is trying to encourage.

For instance, IBM has published articles on radio frequency identification, or RFID, because while the computer giant doesn't make RFID tags it does market technology that goes with them, like software and services.

"Sometimes one might decide that an invention, though patentable, isn't strategic, and might publish that to get the information into the public domain," Schecter said.

See also: IBM Technical Disclosures Prior Art Database

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting here that the Open Invention Network, a group whose backers include IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony, plans to encourage programmers to publish inventions that could prevent patents from being issued, or get existing patents thrown out.

Open Invention Network (OIN), a collaborative enterprise that enables open source innovation and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux, today unveiled the Linux Defenders program, which is designed to make prior art more readily accessible to patent and trademark office examiners, and increase the quality of granted patents and reduce the number of poor quality patents.

"Linux Defenders offers the Linux and broader open source community a unique opportunity to harness its collaborative passion, intelligence, and ingenuity to ensure Linux's natural migration to mobile devices and computing," said Keith Bergelt, chief executive officer of Open Invention Network. "This landmark program will benefit open source innovation by significantly reducing the number of poor quality patents that might otherwise be used by patent trolls or strategics whose behaviors and business models are antithetical to true innovation and are thus threatened by Linux."

Co-sponsored by the Software Freedom Law Center and the Linux Foundation, Linux Defenders is a first-of-its-kind program which aims to reduce future intellectual property concerns about meritless patents for the Linux and open source community. The program is designed to accomplish this by soliciting prior art to enable the rejection of poor quality patent applications; soliciting prior art to enable the invalidation of poor quality issued patents; and soliciting high quality inventions that can be prepared as patent applications or defensive publications.

The Linux Defenders program is expected to enable individuals and organizations to efficiently impact the patenting process by enabling the contribution of relevant prior art, and by creating defensive publications which will establish a body of new prior art. The prior art can be used by examiners to screen patent applications more effectively and ensure only truly novel ideas are patented. The net effect of higher patent quality will be to provide greater freedom for the open source community to build on the Linux platform. Linux has enjoyed adoption in many industries and market segments around the world, and this program will help facilitate future progress in the expansion of the Linux footprint. Use of Linux Defenders is free of charge to contributors of prior art or inventions, and the hosting of defensive publications on databases accessible by patent and trademark office examiners around the world is borne by the program's sponsors.

"A large number of poor quality patents have the potential to stifle innovation," said Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center. "The Software Freedom Law Center is pleased to co-sponsor Linux Defenders with the goal of ridding the world of patents that unscrupulous organizations use to cripple the innovation inherent in freely redistributable, open source software."

"This is an important program that will give the community additional confidence in the code they develop," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. "The open source community is getting an IP rights tool that will limit distractions created from organizations that like to play the FUD game. We enthusiastically encourage the Linux and open source communities to contribute to Linux Defenders."

"We are pleased to be hosting Linux Defenders on behalf of Open Invention Network, Software Freedom Law Center and the Linux Foundation, as it is a natural extension of our "Peer to Patent" platform and our explicit goal of working with industry to address core issues effecting the integrity of the patent system," said Mark Webbink, executive director of the Center for Patent Innovations at the New York Law School.

A Note on Defensive Publications

Defensive publications, which are endorsed by the United States Patent & Trademark Office as an IP rights management tool, are documents that provide descriptions and artwork of a product, device or method so that it enters the public domain and becomes prior art. This powerful preemptive disclosure prevents other parties from obtaining a patent on the product, device or method. It enables original inventors to ensure that they have access to their inventions by preventing others from later making patent claims against them. It also means that they do not have to shoulder the cost of patent applications.

The Defensive Publications program, a component of Linux Defenders, enables non-attorneys to use a set of Web-based forms to generate defensive publications. It relies on substantial participation from the open source community using a "Wiki"-like contribution model. OIN plans to work with participants to ensure that each defensive publication is an effective disclosure. The completed defensive publication will be added by OIN to the IP.com prior art database, which is, in turn, used by IP attorneys and the patent and trademark office to search for prior art when examining patent applications.

About Open Invention Network

Open Invention Network is a collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux by acquiring and licensing patents, influencing behaviors and policy, and defending the integrity of the ecosystem through strategic programs such as Linux Defenders. It enables the growth and continuation of open source software by fostering a healthy Linux ecosystem of investors, vendors, developers and users.

Open Invention Network has considerable industry backing. It was launched in 2005, and has received investments from IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony.

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John Cook is co-founder and executive editor of TechFlash. He has been covering the technology beat for nearly a decade, writing about startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital, most recently serving as a reporter/blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He's got a very interesting article posted on his venture blog. Here's the lead.

Intellectual Ventures co-founder Nathan Myhrvold's growing patent portfolio scares some in the technology business who believe the former Microsoft CTO will use that power as a hammer to win legal battles.

Now, two former executives of Myhrvold's Bellevue patent licensing firm are striking out on their own with support from IBM and Cisco to serve as a counterweight to patent holding firms like Intellectual Ventures. Today, RPX Corp. is launching what it dubs "defensive patent aggregation" -- a membership club of sorts where large and small technology companies pool capital in order to order to protect themselves from patent litigation.

Click here to read the full article on John Cook's Venture Blog, based on his interview with RPX founders John Amster and Geoffrey Barker. Great reporting.

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The word "publish" often brings fear into the hearts of patent attorneys, and rightly so. In sectors such as the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, intellectual capital is king. Patents are a prerequisite to protecting some of the most valuable aspects of that intellectual capital and are thus a key to competitive survival. Ill-considered and untimely publications can be patent poison. Yet, like any poison, publication can also be used as a weapon. In attempting to avoid damaging their own patent potential through poorly timed publication, companies and academic institutions should take care not to overlook the defensive use of publications. A successfully executed defensive publication strategy can, without the need for expensive patent prosecution, help secure freedom to operate by preventing others from patenting in the technology space described in the publication.

That's the conclusion of a lengthy article published in "bioentrepreneur" on nature.com back in 2003, and it's as true today as it was then. But there's one significant little error in that article and, since it's still accessible on the Internet, we'd like to make sure there's no misunderstanding.

The article begins with the example of IBM's technical disclosures for patents but gets one point wrong and we think it might be helpful if we set the record straight.

A search of the US Patent database from 1996 to 2001 reveals almost 10,000 patents that cite the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin as prior art. The Bulletin, which is published as a component of Research Disclosure, is a mechanism for defensive publishing. Citation of a publication, such as the Bulletin, in a patent application indicates that the publication contributes to the state of the art against which the application is judged. IBM uses the Bulletin to advance the state of the art, thereby raising the bar for its competitors' patent applications. In other words, Bulletin publications force IBM's competitors to narrow their patent claims, helping IBM to reduce the possibility that its competitors' patent claims will encompass IBM inventions.

Citation of such a large number of Bulletin articles strongly suggests that IBM's defensive publication strategy is paying off. Despite its successful use by IBM and a handful of other companies, defensive publication has been slow to catch on as an intellectual property (IP) strategy in biotechnology. This article discusses the legal implications of defensive publications, analyzes strategic considerations for determining whether to publish, patent, or maintain an invention as a trade secret, discusses legal considerations for the preparation of defensive publications, and discusses forums for defensive publication.

Since 2002, IBM's Technical Disclosure Bulletin and all its technical disclosures since 1958 have been published as part of IP.com's Prior Art Database. IBM technical disclosures (from 1958 through today) are available for a fee through IP.com. Documents can be purchased through the following: IP.com Prior Art Database. As indicated on the IBM website: "They are also kept on file with Patent & Trademark Offices and U.S. Government Depository Libraries. Searching/copying services are NOT provided by any PTO or Government office."

With that correction noted, the original article is still a valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about defensive publishing. So, just in case the editors of the nature.com website decide to correct the error by removing the article altogether, we thought it might be worthwhile to quote extensively from the original article on this blog, for the record.

What are defensive publications?

The heart of the patent system is a balanced deal between the government (representing the public) and the patent applicant, and an understanding of this deal sets the context for a discussion of defensive publication. The deal requires the inventor to disclose a new invention to the public. In exchange, the government grants the inventor a temporary monopoly on his or her new invention. The purpose of a defensive publication is to destroy the balance of the deal by disclosing an invention to the public. If the defensive publication predates the filing of the inventor's patent application, the patent deal for that application is out of balance: the patent applicant has nothing new to disclose to the public, because the invention has already been disclosed and is thus already possessed by the public. Technically speaking, the successful defensive publication renders the competitor's invention obvious or lacking in novelty.

There is a caveat to the general principle that defensive publications destroy patent rights. In the United States, a competitor may overcome a defensive publication by presenting evidence showing a date of conception that precedes the date of the defensive publication. However, this opportunity is not available in most foreign jurisdictions. As a result, defensive publications have their most predictable effect in the destruction of non-US patent rights.

When is publication a desirable strategy?

When considering a defensive publication strategy, keep in mind that your defensive publication can be used against you as well as against your competitors. In the United States, when an inventor publishes his or her invention, a one-year grace period ensures that the inventor's patent rights are not immediately extinguished. Publication immediately extinguishes most non-US patent rights, however, even those of the inventor. A decision to publish is thus a decision to irreversibly surrender potential patent rights. Such an important decision should only be made in the context of a comprehensive IP strategy. Viewing the potential impact of your defensive publications in light of a high-level strategy will reduce the possibility of strategic mistakes that could damage your IP position.

In general, publication should be considered when (i) the cost of patenting outweighs the benefit of the patent monopoly and (ii) the invention cannot be protected in a manner that is sufficiently secure to support trade-secret protection. The flow chart shown in Figure 1 provides a useful framework for determining the disposition of any specific invention.

Figure 1: Flow chart showing the process for deciding whether an invention will be kept as a trade secret, patented, or made the subject of a defensive publication.

Trade-secret versus patent protection

Trade secrets protect against misappropriation of inventions that are kept secret, and not against independent discovery or reverse engineering. An invention is therefore a good candidate for trade-secret protection when (i) the invention embodies a high degree of complexity and novelty that would make independent invention by a competitor unlikely; (ii) the novel aspects of the invention are not embodied in a form that would permit the invention to be reverse engineered; and (iii) the invention is so securely protected that it is not likely to walk out the door with a customer or an ex-employee.

The classic example of a good candidate for trade-secret protection is a breakthrough manufacturing process that cannot be deduced from the product manufactured. For example, a discovery that a previously patented drug can be synthesized more efficiently using an unusual set of reagents and reaction conditions is a good candidate for trade-secret protection. Patenting of such a process would require disclosure of the invention to the public, and the risk of infringement might not provide sufficient deterrent to prevent others from secretly using the process. Nevertheless, such an invention should be maintained as a trade secret only if the company is committed to taking the stringent security measures necessary to maintain the secrecy of the invention.

In determining whether to maintain an invention as a trade secret, it is important not to stumble over the "best mode" requirement. Patent applicants often like the idea of patenting a basic invention while retaining detailed information about some special aspect of the invention, such as a superior method of making it. However, the patent law requires the patent application to describe the best mode subjectively known to the inventor for carrying out his or her invention2. Failure to include the best mode can result in the invalidation of the resulting patent; thus, patent applicants should not attempt to retain as a trade secret the best mode while seeking a patent on other, less effective modes of carrying out the invention. In some circumstances, an opportunity may exist to patent certain aspects of an invention while retaining other aspects as trade secrets. However, decisions about such approaches should be made in light of a comprehensive strategy in consultation with a patent attorney or agent who has been fully informed of all aspects of the invention.

If the invention is not a good candidate for trade-secret protection, the next step is to consider whether patent protection is warranted. Patent protection is generally preferable to publication, especially for the following categories of inventions: core or platform technologies with multiple applications; improvements to core technologies where the core technology is not already protected by patent; and improvements to patented inventions where patent term is important.

Invention of a core technology with multiple commercial applications generally provides the foundation for broad patent protection. For example, discovery, expression, and sequencing of a gene associated with a disease is usually sufficient to obtain a patent covering the isolated gene, the synthetically produced gene, degenerate versions of the gene, the gene as a component of a heterologous DNA sequence, the gene as a component of a plasmid, a cell comprising the plasmid, and so on. For a commercially important gene, this potentially broad patent coverage is rarely outweighed by the costs of patenting. Moreover, because genetic inventions are often subject to reverse engineering and independent discovery, trade-secret protection may not be adequate. Consequently, a patent is the preferred form of protection for such platform inventions.

Improvements to core technologies not already protected by patents often form the basis of narrow, but valuable, patent protection. For example, consider the situation in which a gene is publicly available and therefore not patentable. A novel mutation that results in an improvement in the gene product may open the door to narrow patent protection for a nucleic acid with the improved nucleotide sequence. Patent protection of narrow, incremental improvements is especially preferred when the patent's claims will encompass a commercial product. If, for example, the mutated gene will form a component of your product, patenting is the preferred mode of protection. On the other hand, if the incremental invention (i) will not be embodied in a commercial product (e.g., the mutated gene results in a product that is not as good as the current lead product) and (ii) is already embodied in the broad claims of your patent portfolio, then publication to prevent patenting by a competitor may be warranted.

Where an invention has potential long-term marketability, patenting incremental inventions embodied in products is advisable, even when an existing patent already protects the invention. In such circumstances, patenting of incremental inventions can help to extend the life of the patent coverage for the product. Pharmaceutical companies often patent incremental inventions to extend the length of patent coverage for a drug product. Such incremental inventions typically include novel formulations, new methods of administration, specialized drug delivery devices, improved dosage regimens, and dosage forms combining more than one active ingredient. Moreover, for high-revenue products, it may be desirable to patent incremental inventions even when the incremental inventions are not embodied in a product, especially if the incremental invention is an alternative that may be a truly effective competitor.

Defensive publication should be preferred over patent protection only if the cost of obtaining a patent is not justified by the value of the patent monopoly. The classic scenario for use of defensive publications involves incremental inventions that are (i) covered by existing patent claims and (ii) not embodied in a product with potentially long-term marketability. Consider the example of a novel gene. If a strong patent portfolio exists with claims broadly covering the gene and methods of making the gene product using bacteria from the Salmonella genus, new data that yet another Salmonella species produces a properly folded gene product would be a good candidate for publication. If the invention is not covered by existing claims, then publishing the invention only assists competitors in practicing the invention. If the invention is embodied in a product with long-term marketability, then the expense of obtaining patent coverage is likely to be justified by the extended patent protection.

Other examples of potentially effective publications include the following:

Uses of a core technology that are not strong candidates for patent protection. Even though they are not strong candidates, a competitor may convince the patent office to issue a patent. An issued patent, even if it is invalid, is entitled to a presumption of validity, and expensive litigation may be required to overcome this presumption.

Inventions in filed applications. Most countries automatically publish patent applications 18 months after the initial filing. This results in an 18-month window during which a non-US patent application can be filed in a foreign country. Early publication of your own patent application (i.e., before the 18-month publication) can prevent this. Keep in mind, however, that the early publication can be used against your own subsequently filed non-US patent applications as well.

Inventions in catalogs or other advertising material. Catalogs, web sites, and other customer information all qualify as prior art. However, these items often are not searched by the patent offices because they are not in searchable databases. Publication of such materials in a forum that is readily searchable by patent examiners can increase the probability that examiners will find these publications and use them against your competitor's patents.

How to write a defensive publication

The probability of executing a successful defensive publication strategy is vastly improved if the defensive publication strategy is part of a comprehensive patent strategy. As noted above, defensive publications relating to important company technology are best employed only where the company already has effective patent protection. For this reason, it is often necessary to analyze the claims of your existing patents before publishing to be sure that they encompass the alternatives being described in your defensive publication. In the absence of such protection, your defensive publication may simply assist your competitor in engineering around your patent. Regularly scheduled reviews can be used to identify and evaluate the value of each new invention, so that a decision can be made regarding whether to patent, publish, or maintain the invention as a trade secret. If a decision is made to publish, the form and content of the defensive publication should be carefully considered.

According to the US Federal courts, the impact of a publication on patentability is controlled by the "enablement requirement." To knock out a patent application, a publication must "enable" the invention claimed in the patent application: that is, the publication must "disclose every element of the challenged claim and enable one skilled in the art to make the anticipating subject matter"3. An assessment of the probable value of a defensive publication should take into account that the publication will not prevent others from patenting aspects of the invention that are not enabled by the publication. In complex fields like biotechnology, where the efficacy of conceptual inventions is viewed as unpredictable, this application of the enablement requirement means that the defensive publication should provide a detailed protocol for obtaining the invention and should generally describe empirical work demonstrating the validity of the inventive concept.

For example, consider the publication of a new gene sequence. Publication of the sequence enables an ordinary molecular biologist to make a nucleic acid having the exact sequence of the gene. Publication of the sequence may not, however, enable an ordinary molecular biologist to use the gene in a specific gene-therapy application. The publication would destroy the right of others to patent the isolated or synthetically produced nucleic acid encoding the gene, but may not destroy the patent rights of one who later succeeds in using the nucleic acid in an unpredictable gene-therapy application.

To strengthen the impact of the publication, consider including alternatives to the invention. Including alternatives to the invention will protect against competitors who wish to engineer around the published invention to generate patentable alternatives. For example, if the defensive publication includes a gene sequence, consider including language quantifying the permissible amount of variation in the sequence—that is, the amount of variation that can be tolerated without destroying the activity of the gene product. Your patent counsel can assist you in broadening the impact of a defensive publication by providing language commonly used in patents to broaden the scope of an invention. Broadening the defensive publication in this manner will reduce the risk that others will patent related inventions; however, surprising improvements or alternatives may still be patentable. As you broaden the scope, consider that you may need to describe experiments supporting the enablement of those alternatives.

Where to publish

Arenas for publishing defensive publications range from traditional peer-reviewed journals to online publications. Publication in peer-reviewed journals is a desirable option because the critical review afforded such publications validates their contents and is important to the advancement of science. The traditional requirement of repeatability in peer-reviewed publications parallels the enablement requirement, helping to ensure that the latter is satisfied. The difficulty with traditional journal publications is that submitted articles can take months to be published. Consequently, if timing is important to the patent strategy, refereed journals should not be relied on for defensive publishing purposes.

[Before 1998, IBM maintained its own defensive publishing bulletin, the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin. In 1998, IBM began publishing its technical disclosures in Research Disclosure, a defensive publishing forum published by Emsworth Design, Inc. since the 1960s. Research Disclosure is a World Intellectual Property Organization–recommended journal, which helps to ensure that it is on the radar of patent examiners around the world. More than 1,000 companies use Research Disclosure, which publishes about 400 disclosures a month, and Emsworth plans to begin accepting publications through the Internet in the near future.]* see notes at the the beginning of this blog post.

A tempting forum for defensive publishing is the standard company web site. The content of web sites is constantly changing, however, and most do not include a method of verifying the date and authenticity of the publication. Additionally, web-based searching is still not as accurate as searching of traditional information databases. These problems reduce the probability that a web site publication will be identified and considered by patent examiners.

IP.com is an Internet-based defensive publishing company that seeks to address current online publication problems. IP.com's system electronically date-stamps and authenticates each defensive publication to ensure that its publications have legal significance for the world's patent systems. Documents published by IP.com become part of the text-searchable database accessible to the world's patent offices. The disclosures are also published monthly in The IP.com Journal to ensure compliance with accepted legal standards.

Conclusions

The word "publish" often brings fear into the hearts of patent attorneys, and rightly so. In sectors such as the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, intellectual capital is king. Patents are a prerequisite to protecting some of the most valuable aspects of that intellectual capital and are thus a key to competitive survival. Ill-considered and untimely publications can be patent poison. Yet, like any poison, publication can also be used as a weapon. In attempting to avoid damaging their own patent potential through poorly timed publication, companies and academic institutions should take care not to overlook the defensive use of publications. A successfully executed defensive publication strategy can, without the need for expensive patent prosecution, help secure freedom to operate by preventing others from patenting in the technology space described in the publication.

If IP.com had a corporate weblog back in 2003 when this article was first published, we'd have been all over it to make sure everyone interested in defensive publishing was aware of the depth of the Prior Art Database including, as it does, the current and archived technical disclosures of IBM and many other innovative companies.

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Law.com reports that an executive who worked at IBM for nearly a decade pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets about the company's pricing and trying to pass them off to his superiors at rival Hewlett-Packard  when he took a job there. Atul Malhotra, 42, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the single count of theft of trade secrets, prosecutors said.

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog apparently got through to John Vandevelde, Malhotra’s attorney, who reportedly called his client “an honorable man with an impeccable record” who “made one mistake in transitioning from one high-tech job to another.”

It's noted that HP and IBM cooperated with the prosecution in this case. HP said it detected the activity, fired Malhotra and turned the information over to law enforcement. His employment at HP lasted five months. IBM declined to comment on the case.

News of the guilty plea in this criminal prosecution was posted on Trading Secrets, the new law blog authored by the attorneys of the Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud, & Non-Competes practice group of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, who protect and defend clients against those who improperly handle proprietary information, violate non-compete agreements, improperly solicit customers or remove electronic data from businesses, and raid employees. This looks like a great new intellectual property law blog, so we've added a link to Trading Secrets in our list of IP Blogs in the sidebar on the left.

It's always big news whenever an executive is caught stealing trade secrets, sometimes with the cooperation of companies as competitive as Coke and Pepsi. Savvy companies would much rather protect their trade secrets and not rely on the goodwill and ethical management of their biggest competitors to prevent the loss of valuable intellectual property. After all, a trade secret is only enforceable if reasonable safeguards are in place to maintain its secrecy.

We're unabashedly enthusiastic about IP.com's effective technical solutions that secure innovation and protect intellectual property. InnovationQ provides key tools for effective Trade Secret Management that enable proactive, innovative companies to secure trade secrets as an economic and strategic component of their IP portfolio.

Others might rely on criminal prosecutions, lawsuits against competitors and former employees, and voluntary water torture to discover leaks.

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It was interesting to see this interview with Harvard Business School professor Josh Lerner on the subject of Monetizing IP. Particularly topical this week was Professor Lerner's answer to this question about patent pools, posed by Sean Silverthorne:

Q: What is happening in the area of patent pools? Are these becoming more popular and, if so, in which industries?

A: In a patent pool, firms blend their patents with those of other firms. These pools allow users to access a number of firms' patents simultaneously, thereby avoiding the "patent thicket." In many cases, the pooling agreements also specify the pricing schedule in the agreement that establishes the pool, assuring that no party attempts to extract very high fees or to increase its fees after users are locked in.

Patent pools date back as far as the 1850s but have proliferated in recent years. Goods covered by patent pools totaled at least $100 billion in the United States in 2000, while multiple standard-setting bodies today cover virtually every high-technology product. Moreover, the scope of these activities is likely to grow in future years. In many industries, leaders have expressed frustration about the proliferation of patent thickets—the large number of overlapping awards—and the ensuing rise of costly and time-consuming litigation. In many cases, technology sharing has been proposed as a remedy.

And the scope of industries considering adopted patent pools has also grown. While the patent pools have been well established in basic manufacturing and electronic industries for decades, they have been seen as a potential solution for increasingly prevalent patent licensing issues elsewhere, such in new biotechnology-related fields. For instance, a great deal of interest has surrounded proposals to use patent pools to address the multiplicity of rights that are slowing research in critical diseases such as AIDS and breast cancer.

Patent pools are only one way in which firms share their technology with each other. The rapid growth of open source software over the course of this decade has been highlighted in numerous press accounts. The multibillion dollar initial public offerings of Red Hat and VA Linux, IBM's embrace of open source and its investment of billions of dollars into these projects, and the recent (though qualified) embrace of Linux by Microsoft, formerly a bitter opponent: all these events have been extensively documented. What is much less well appreciated, however, is that open source is only the tip of the iceberg of the technology sharing that is reshaping high-technology industries. Patent pools, standard-setting organizations, and technology licensing efforts are having a profound effect on how firms seek to exploit new discoveries.

This Q&A is especially topical this week  when, that very same day the interview was published, it was announced that Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Clearwire, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics and Sprint have formed the Open Patent Alliance (OPA) to advance a competitive and open intellectual property rights model stimulating a larger WiMAX industry that supports innovation through broader choice and lower equipment and service costs for WiMAX technology, devices and applications globally.

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This week, as the New York Times reported that writers blog till they drop dead, we were relieved to see IBM's technical disclosure in the IP.com Prior Art Database, promising a more relaxing experience for bloggers with the laptop of the future.

Method to use laptop generated heat for 'aromatherapy'

Often, certain smells can stimulate work productivity. Motivation and Healing by smell is a very common practice and long time tradition. How nice would be to be stimulated by the scent of Chocolate or a Coffee without have to digest it? Since one's convenience is sought after as a top priority in today's society, it is only fitting that it be addressed in respect to the integration of today's technology and the common practices or classic traditions of aromatherapy. 'Aromatherapy' via a fragrance gel/oil and your laptop's generated heat may be all you need to complete your daily tasks list more efficiently. This approach can result in enhance work experience and increased productivity.

Until that innovation finds its way into an IBM laptop of the future, technology bloggers should work on developing zen habits for haiku productivity.

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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?

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