The solution
On January 14, 2008 an IBM-led group, working with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, launched the Eco-Patent Commons. Thirty-one patents were pledged at launch—27 from IBM and four from Sony, Nokia and Pitney Bowes—covering technologies such as treating noxious gases, replacing packaging foam and recycling old cell phones.
The mechanism is simple: any patent holder pledges inventions that protect or improve the environment, and anyone—companies, entrepreneurs, researchers—can use them free of infringement risk. Pledgers choose which patents to give, as long as the inventions yield environmental benefits such as energy conservation, pollution prevention or recyclability.
The commons was later hosted by the Environmental Law Institute and grew to eleven member companies. In 2015 it cross-listed more than a hundred patented environmental technologies on WIPO GREEN's marketplace, where users get royalty-free access.
What it achieved
Pledge patents free; diffusion beats rent
Why it worked
Free access removes the legal fear that blocks green-tech adoption
Firms only pledge patents they are unlikely to assert
Donation buys reputation and ecosystem goodwill
A commons spreads solutions faster than licensing negotiations
What can be applied
A patent's value can come from being used, not from being enforced: waive rights on assets you will not assert and you buy adoption, trust and goodwill.
Aftermath
By 2015 the commons had eleven member companies and had cross-listed more than a hundred technologies on WIPO GREEN, where the patents remain royalty-free. The model became a template for later corporate patent pledges, showing that waiving rights on unused patents can accelerate diffusion of clean technology.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE