OAKLAND, CA — The bedrock of capitalism based around innovation has for years been the idea that when someone invents a unique and in-demand product or service, it should be patented and protected at all costs.

But a growing number of companies are turning the concept of intellectual capital on its head in the name of sustainability. Count IBM, Nike and the Outdoor Industry Association among the growing list of business interests turning to open source models to lower costs and scale best practices and technologies. 

"If you invent something really, really cool, it's going to be worth something," said Michel Gelobter, chief green officer at software firm Hara.

"You might have to find a way to protect it and still pursue the goal you were seeking," Gelobter said during a workshop he moderated Wednesday at the 2011 Ceres Conference. "Where is that tension, what is that goal?"

Opening up intellectual property for the common good can be traced back to the early 1970s when a group of Vietnam veterans patented their wheelchair designs and put them into the public domain, Gelobter said.

Since then, we've seen the emergence of the Eco-Index, an open source, industry-created tool to help companies evaluate product environmental footprint, and the Eco-Patent Commons, an online repository of free patents that carry some sort of environmental benefit.

For many, the move to open source began with a desire to avoid duplication. Hannah Jones, vice president of sustainable business and innovation at Nike and a member of Gelobter's panel, remembers learning from a designer that he'd spent the last year working on an environmentally-friendly shoebox for a Nike competitor.

Her reaction: "I've just spent a whole year working with 30 designers to do the same thing. I'm not competing on a shoebox."

It's not about giving away the crown jewels, Jones said. "This is about a very careful strategy of understanding where as an industry can we collaborate to scale faster, and where can we continue to compete?"