Environmental Leader

Bosch, DuPont and Xerox Corporation announced they have joined the Eco-Patent Commons, a business effort to help the environment by pledging environmentally-beneficial patents to the public domain. The pledges from the companies more than doubles the number of patents available to the public.

The Eco-Patent Commons was launched in January 2008, and aims to facilitate the use of existing technologies to protect the environment  and encourage collaboration between businesses that foster new innovations.

Xerox has pledged 11 patents that make it possible to cut the time it takes to remove toxic waste from soil and water from years to months.

DuPont has contributed four patents, one of which involves waste reduction technology that uses selected enzymes to accelerate the conversion of certain non-recyclable plastics to beneficial fertilizers. The other three patents involve the company’s Lux technology for pollution detection.

Most of the pledged patents from Bosch relate to automotive technology and include applications for energy and engine management in vehicles, including the manufacture of injection systems and particulate filters.

Founding member Sony has also pledged three more patents relating to the recycling of optical discs, which is done by retrieving pigment composition and metal from the disc’s reflective film.

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