What would happen if you were given over $2 trillion? That’s right, if someone walked up to you and gave you $2 trillion. That could never happen, right?

In fact, that is exactly what has just happened.

While the patent system has been around since the 17th century when it was developed by nobles in Italy and England, it may surprise you that the system was designed to benefit you. Patents were supposed to be a public disclosure to advance science and useful knowledge. If someone shared sufficient information to teach the public about a novel development or useful technology, they would have a limited time (about 20 years) to decide who could use that idea.

There’s some bad news and some good news. First, the bad news: For the past 30 years, patents have been abused. Rather than serving the public’s expansion of knowledge, they’ve been used as business and legal weapons. Over 50,000,000 patents covering everything you do have served to keep you from benefiting in many aspects of your life. Many life-saving treatments have been kept from the market because they threaten established business interests. The world’s ecosystem has been severely damaged because efficiencies have been kept from entereing the market.

In the face of all this, however, there is the good news: The thirty year “cold war” of innovation is over. Today, you now have access to it all. In the Global Innovation Commons, we have assembled hundreds of thousands of innovations – most in the form of patents – which are either expired, no-longer maintained (meaning that the fees to keep the patents in force have lapsed), disallowed, or unprotected in most, if not all, relevant markets. This means that, as of right now, you can take a step into a world full of possibilities, not roadblocks. You want clean water for China or Sudan – it’s in here. You want carbon-free energy – it’s in here. You want food production for Asia or South America – it’s in here.

But here’s the catch. We’re sharing this under a license. The license is really simple. If you use this information, you must share what you’re doing with everyone else. If you improve upon it, you must share your improvements with everyone else. And finally, if you use any of this information, you must reference the “Global Innovation Commons.” That’s it. When you take the next step, turn the possibilities into realities.

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The following paragraphs clarify the architectures and intentions of the Global Innovation Commons and The Heritable Innovation Trust. Within a commons trust framework, both projects offer an alternative to enclosure (property/proprietary) based systems of engagement and exchange.

The Global Innovation Commons takes public domain artifacts and shares them under a commons umbrella license agreement. While public domain artifacts are not commons artifacts in the traditional sense, they are a Constitutionally issued industrial compromise which at first robs the commons with time limited enclosure, but upon expiration, actually enhances the national/international commons by making publically available the artifact ‘for the promotion of Progress of Science and useful Arts’.

Transparency into the vast amounts of freely available information in any form liberates us to begin a commons innovation process starting with a larger set of tools. Commons innovation, co-operation and co-creation in terms of the Global Innovation Commons emerge on top of the public domain layer of information and the commons framework is governed by the rules of sharing, participation, openness and replenishment. The governance, in the form of a license, states that, “if you use the information, you must share what you’re doing with everyone else. And finally, if you use any of this information, you must reference the “Global Innovation Commons”. The co-governance and co-production license is not an enclosure or barrier to the commons, rather, it is an agreement to actively participate in and steward the commons resource.

In May’s Kosmos Journal, James Bernard Quilligan wrote that, “Commons have different meanings due to different levels of scale. At community and regional levels, the commons are largely a territorial concept involving the local appropriation, use and benefit or a particular property; at the global level, it’s more of a functional concept involving sovereign resource management rather than questions of use and benefit.” What the Global Innovation Commons does in practice, is to start by taking the artifacts of the old system and make them available publically. These artifacts as enclosure energy in one system, in combination with oversight or neglect (of the inventor/innovator), allows for their true commons liberation in the very areas they overlooked. Grassroots, municipal, or sovereign innovation can now start in these previously marginalized countries; not from ground zero, but on a level or even heightened playing field. Intangible commonly held and managed properties can be managed as sovereign resources which re-balance surpluses and deficits using innovation as the value which tips the scales.

The Heritable Innovation Trust Framework sets forth the following principles and put into practice Mr. Quilligan’s concepts on Commons Trusts, “If the world belongs to no one, as res nullius claims, then we are not owners but trustees. On this basis, humanity would hold the global commons in trust through a new framework of cooperation and agreement based on natural law, customary law and public trust doctrine… (Kosmos)”. In the Heritable Innovation Trust framework, as information is disclosed by a party, the information immediately enters the trust framework which maintains the heritable trusteeship but widens the possibility of engagement with a world operating in an enclosure model. In short:

The Trust Protects: Having been finalized in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, it is not subject to any expiration of copyright under any international convention. All knowledge in the trust is held in a perpetual, inalienable trust which shall benefit the knowledge stewards and their off-spring with out term or expiration.

The Trust Grows: By reading, sharing, observing, modifying, adapting, or using the knowledge in a trust document the reader affirms and agrees to participate in the reciprocal nature of information sharing embodied within the document.

The Trust Provides: The use of any of the information will be beneficially shared with the individuals who first shared the information. Should any commercial use be made, not only shall a share of all proceeds be shared with the Trust Stewards, but all information, designs, modes of distribution, information on sales and marketing are required to be taught to the Trust Stewards and any manufacturing process deployed must be done in partnership with Trust Stewards.

The Heritable Innovation Trust allows open access to information and innovation and does so under a stewardship agreement which states that the innovation, available for public use and benefit, has been stewarded for generations and is not available for enclosure, but is available for engagement. This engagement originates with the community and creates a shared communal asset not subject to enclosure rules with the added benefit of having no expiration. The 2010 Trust originated in communities located in Ecuador, Mongolia and Papua New Guinea and is available here: http://portal.heritableinnovationtrust.org/hit2010 (right click “Save Link As” to download as it is a large file).

Both projects encourage participation, connection and criticism. If, as you experience the sites, you feel there is a tool, explanation, or method of engagement which you feel can improve the projects, please send us your feedback, ask a question, or participate in implementation or governance. Also, please comment on the blog and discuss.