When the World Business Council on Sustainable Development in January 2008 launched the Eco-Patents Commons in partnership with IBM, Sony, Nokia and Pitney-Bowes, it was an unprecedented step in the development of clean technologies. Here were leading companies -- and, in IBM's case, the U.S. company with the most patents, year after year -- giving away ideas so that other companies could either apply to their own operations or work from to develop their own, new and patentable inventions.

Read more about eco-patents here.