For various reasons, IBM is one of the prime examples of the "open innovation" - the model of innovation marked by purposeful inflows and outflows of knowledge from a firm's boundaries. IBM has gotten a lot of good press for its open source model of open innovation, but less discussed in technology policy circles is how IBM's patents contribute to its strengths in open innovation: Partnering On Intellectual Property Key To Bottom Line At IBM. Excerpts:

[IBM] is … focused on developing strategic partnerships based on existing intellectual property (IP) as it is on new technology itself.

In March 2006, IBM's Systems and Technology Group announced a new organization intended to put IBM at the center of the fast-growing "collaborative innovation" market opportunity.

The new unit, Global Engineering Solutions… was designed to take advantage of major shifts in the market, namely the critical nature of R&D to business growth and the need for companies to collaborate to drive innovation.

"What we are finding is that you really can't compete without some IP involved," Solie says. "Most of our customers want IBM to have some investment to get in the game. It's almost becoming the ticket to get in."

Its good to see IBM sharing, or rather collaborating with others, by leveraging its legendary R&D labs, and finding opportunities to push its patents to the market through other firms. Not all firms can afford $5-6 billion dollar annual R&D budgets however, thus as IBM works collaborates in commercializing its inventions, society benefits as well.