GriffithHack Patents Trademarks IP Law

Solar thermal heat and solar electricity present enormous clean energy opportunities for Australia. However, adoption of such technologies on a broader scale has been marred by the lack of suitable large scale industrial clean energy solutions.

Australia has a lot to learn a lot from its global peers who jumped on the renewable energy bandwagon years ago. For example, Germany and Spain lack Australia’s limitless access to sun and wind – yet are ahead of Australia in moving away from an archaic carbon economy. Germany utilises 15 times more wind power and 50 times more solar power than Australia and also provides work to 280,000 people. It is beyond doubt that transitioning to renewable energy is viable for Australia.

The Australian clean energy landscape may finally be changing. The Australian solar industry has received a boost with the announcement of close to $12m to be dedicated to the Australian Solar Institute (ASI) of which $3.2 million will go towards an applied research grant to Chromasun, a spin off from the Compact Linear Fresnel Technology developed by the Australian founded Ausra to accelerate solar energy technology development.

Interestingly, after being starved of opportunities in Australia, Ausra eventually set up shop in California and was ultimately sold to French nuclear giant Areva. The Chromasun technology is also proposed for the Solar Dawn project. The Solar Dawn project is a proposed 250 megawatt solar thermal power plant to be built near Chinchilla in South West Queensland by a consortium including AREVA Solar and Wind Prospect CWP. The proposed project is part of the Australian Government’s Solar Flagships Program, which aims to provide the foundation for large-scale, grid-connected solar power and to accelerate the commercialization of solar power in Australia.  It is a key component of the Australian Government’s $5 billion Clean Energy Initiative.

Peter Le Lievre, a co-founder of Ausra, heads Chromasun which continues to own rights to a rooftop  version of the solar-thermal technology. The chief engineer of Chromasun, Andrew Tanner is a University of Sydney graduate who was founding engineer at Ausra.

“Chromasun is still majority Australian owned,” Le Lievre told RenewEconomy. “We hope to keep as much in Australian hands as long as possible. But it is only in the last year or two that we have we seen Australia have the right policy settings and the right market to sustain a company like ours.” He specifically mentions initiatives such as the ASI funding, the carbon price and the Clean Energy Finance Corp. “This is very much a coming home – certainly on the manufacturing side.”

The project builds upon hybrid photovoltaic receiver research and development work Chromasun has previously completed with The Australian National University and The University of New South Wales. Hybrid receivers were first developed and installed in standard Chromasun MCT Collectors and then mounted for testing and data collection at the 2007 Solar Decathlon House at Santa Clara University in San Jose, CA.

The Australian Solar Institute announced in a media release on 23 March 2012 that  “Chromasun will partner with the Futuris Group of Companies to develop and establish an Australian pilot manufacturing capability for the Chromasun Micro-Concentrator (MCT) concentrating solar thermal (CST) product. Phase 1 will include a pilot deployment with MCT collectors in Victoria at Echuca Hospital and will be coupled with a double-effect absorption chiller to provide air-conditioning directly from sunlight. Another pilot deployment will be built in Western Australia at Little Creatures Brewery coupled to an ammonia chiller to simultaneously provide chilled water and heat for boiler feedwater. Phase 2 of the project will involve developing and commissioning a hybrid (CPV-T) receiver manufacturing capability for integration into MCT units. MCT-Hybrid units will then be deployed at the University of Southern Queensland and at the Australian National University. Both these MCT-Hybrid installations will conveniently and simultaneously provide electricity and hot water.”

It is hoped that initiatives such as the ones initiated by Australian Solar Institute will go a long way in securing Australia’s energy needs for the future and help Australia become a global leader in solar technology.

Andy Mukherji

A recent post by Giles Parkinson has highlighted 10 things you should know about the GFC, with the #1 point being: 

Australia is behind the rest of the world

 This is not a trivial point. Although we may not think of ourselves in this way, Australia is an economy highly dependent on exporting energy if consider our  exports of coal, aluminium (which is regarded by some as ‘frozen electricity’) and increasingly natural gas. So an energy economy is our current economic reality – but will it be our future? 

Only time will tell, but the one constant of life is change. Many countries have become overly reliant on one or more export products to find that technologies and markets have moved onto other things. Australia itself used to be regarded as ‘on the sheep’s back’, until the world moved onto new fibres and alternative sources of protein. Will the same happen to our energy economy? 

It is great to have a successful economy exporting energy, but there is always a risk that the world will move away from carbon based energy sources. Australia does have alternative forms of energy potential, for example hydro, geothermal, solar, wind and wave, but exporting the resulting energy is difficult (with aluminium the only likely exception). 

What Australia can export is know-how and knowledge in relation to the creation of these alternative energy types. This know-how can be encapsulated in the form of intellectual property, in particular patents, registered design and trade marks. But over recent years Griffith Hack has looked at the clean energy patent landscape.  The results reveal that in virtually every case, Australia has been shown to be significant importer of clean energy IP. This is not due to the lack of clean energy companies and start-ups in Australia – instead the sad reality is that only a few of our clean energy companies choose to file patents to protect their developments. Or, in other words:

 Australia is behind the rest of the world

There appears to be a range of reasons why many Australian clean energy companies choose not to file patents to protect their developments. But without such IP, Australian clean energy companies may simply be fish food for when the well protected international clean energy companies get serious about clean energy and its IP ownership in Australia. We have seen this increasingly in the smartphone and social networking spaces, and we will almost certainly see this in the clean energy space when the money starts rolling in, starting with the $10 billion being put up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.   Australian governments know recognise this, that’s why government technology funding is increasingly dependent on having strong IP strategies in place.

Want to know more? Please contact us if you want to know about where Australia sits within the clean energy IP space, and how we can work with you to transform your company to something higher up in the food chain….

Mike Lloyd

Nominations for the New South Wales (NSW) Government’s 13th annual Green Globe Awards are now open. These Awards are intended to recognise environmental success at the highest level in NSW. 

Nominations can be submitted in three main categories: Energy Water and Waste; Sustainability; and Leadership and Innovation. Subcategories within each of the main categories are devoted to public sector enterprises, NSW local councils and Not-for-profit organisations for demonstrating significant environmental achievements in NSW. 

This is a great opportunity for organisations and businesses to be awarded for making a significant contribution towards improving the environmental performance and improving sustainability in NSW.

Further information is available here.

Andy Mukherji

As the price of oil climbs seemingly unstoppably upwards, electric cars are coming more and more into the picture. But do they save CO2 emissions? Do they save money? And are there many patents filed for electric cars? 

Some answers to the first two of these questions is found in the excellent little You-Tube video which discusses how:

•  The CO2 emissions from electric cars powered by Victorian electricity may be surprisingly high.
• The situation is a lot better for electric cars powered by Tasmanian or New Zealand electricity, or cars powered by ‘green electricity’ (available from your energy retailer)
• Regardless the energy costs for such electric cars may still be very competitive, even if green electricity is used.

And the third question – are there patents for electric cars? I ran a simple search on the Australian patent database and found around 50 or so filed or granted patents that included ‘electric vehicle’ in their abstract. And there may be many more patents also covering aspects of electric cars that do not include ‘electric vehicle’ in their abstract.

 One of the more likely of these aspects is around their energy management. Australian wholesale power can get very cheap or even negative priced over night, as the big coal burning power stations cannot be easily shut down as demand reduces. It is logical to manage charging of electric car batteries so that they are not being recharged at say 6pm when the commuting electric car returns home and is plugged in for the night, but instead at midnight or later. A number of charging strategies may be possible, and no doubt this could lead to some very interesting IP.

Mike Lloyd

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has launched “WIPO Green”, a green-technology marketplace. This database facilitates the identification of existing and emerging green technologies, making it easier for companies and researchers to find potential partners. Technology companies and individual inventors can upload innovations for sale or licensing across a range of technologies.  WIPO also expects its tool to help ensure that R&D resources are not deployed on pre-existing green technology.

More specifically, the tool serves as a hub connecting various critical partners, with WIPO facilitating the policy dialogue and networking. The tool can also facilitate the matching of specific, user-formulated needs with technology providers. In addition, the tool provides for training, consulting, dispute resolution and financial support in the green technology area.

The tool is also linked to WIPO’s PatentScope service, a database with details of all international applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Further details about this new tool are available here.

Andy Mukherji

What effect will the availability of cheap shale gas and oil have on the uptake of renewables? US shale oil and gas is already coming on stream in vast quantities, giving that country the potential for energy independence from the middle east. Will the same soon happen in China? And if it does, what approach will these vast energy consumers bring to renewables? Piecemeal? For more details follow this link.

Robert Wulff

Some of the cleantech displayed at the ‘Eco-tech Showcase’ of the Toronto Auto Show is summarised here. Even cars at the opposite end of the sustainability spectrum (such as the Bugatti Veyron and Aston Martin One-77) are exhibiting some concept cleantech (such as Jaguar’s V6 hybrid concept).

Daniel Rosenthal

A press release from Ford Motor Company (FMC), suggests that the number of Ford patents relating to hybrid vehicle technology is now nearly 500.  This still seems to lag well behind Toyota’s portfolio, which was reported as being around 2000 patents as far back as 2009 (although recognising that there are various ways of calculating the total number of patents owned).  The reported rapid increase in the number of patents seems to reinforce the message in FMC’s commercial offering that it’s taking its position in the hybrid market very seriously.

Daniel Rosenthal

Water security is of high and increasing importance in Australia. Increasing demand on water supplies due to climate change, drought and population growth means that Australia needs to find new and innovative ways in which to supply, use, manage, recycle and recover its water resources.

For anyone developing these innovations, protecting them using patent applications enables those innovations to be leveraged across the country and the world. Conversely, it is extremely useful for water technology innovators to know what patent applications are being filed in their field so that they can understand what their competitors are doing and identify potential areas for development. In addition, by monitoring patent applications, relevant technology developments can be identified with the view to licensing that technology.

The following is an overview of selected recently filed water treatment patent applications in Australia. They were located by searching for Australian patents which had been classified in water treatment classes of the International Patent Classification (IPC). This includes fields as diverse as desalination, sewage treatment and industrial water treatment.

This is only a snapshot of what we estimate to be about 250 water treatment patents filed in Australia, up from 240 in 2010 and 223 patents in 2009. Water technology patents have been previously reviewed in our 2010 report: Water innovation in Australia: pipeline to profit?

For further information about the rest of these water patents, please come back to us.

Andrew Davey

Patent details	Representative image	Summary
Seawater desalination apparatus Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba Australian Patent Application No. 2012022011 Priority Date: 17 May 2010 Publication Date: 1 December 2011 Status: Pending		A reverse osmosis seawater desalination apparatus having a high-pressure pump configured to feed seawater to the reverse osmosis membrane, a power recovery device which recovers energy from the condensed seawater, a booster pump for boosting the pressure of the seawater discharged from the power recovery device and an exhaust valve for controlling the amount of seawater discharged from the power recovery device. The apparatus also has various pressure and flow sensors and a controller for controlling the number of revolutions of the high-pressure pump and the booster pump and the degree of opening of the exhaust valve.
An apparatus for prevent scaling and/or removing scale Calclear Investments Pty Ltd Australian Patent Application No. 2011201383 Priority Date: 23 March 2010 Publication Date: 13 October 2011 Status: Pending		This patent application describes an apparatus that applies an electro-magnetic field for preventing and/or removing scale, in particular from a metallic pipe that carries a heavily mineralised liquid or solution such as hard water. The apparatus comprises a microcontroller that cooperates with a switching amplifier (or switchmode or Class D amplifier) to form a closed loop for generation of the magnetic field of a pre-determined strength. The switching amplifier is more energy efficient than prior systems and therefore requires less power. It also does not create as much waste heat.
Treatment of water Tshwane University of Technology Australian Patent Application No. 2011201269 Priority Date: 25 March 2010 Publication Date: 13 October 2011 Status: Pending		A method of treating water in particular acid mine drainage water. The method involves adding magnesium hydroxide and/or ammonium hydroxide to precipitate out dissolved metals as metal hydroxides or oxides; adding barium hydroxide to form barium sulphate with the dissolved sulphates which is then removed from the water; and adding carbon dioxide to precipitate out dissolved calcium as calcium carbonate. When ammonium hydroxide is used in the first step, ammonium is stripped from the water.
Desalinization unit Quatripole Ingenieria, S.L. Australian Patent Application No. 2011200734 Priority Date: 22 February 2010 Publication Date: 8 September 2011 Status: Pending		A desalinization unit that is designed to produce drinking water using sea water through a process of inverse osmosis, and for its preferential installation mainly on boats/ships. The unit includes three separate modules, one corresponding to a sea water intake pump, another corresponding to a silex sand filter, and a third as a main module for controlling the operation of the drinking water production process. A multiple cartridge filter  is provided in the third module, through which the water from the silex sand filter passes, before reaching a set of inverse osmosis modules that lead to two outlets, one of brine, and another of drinking water which is collected in a storage tank.
A system and method for controlling multiple sized water softening tanks Culligan International Company Australian Patent Application No. 2011200150 Priority Date: 14 January 2010 Publication Date:  28 July 2011 Status: Pending		A water softening system comprising two treatment tanks, the second tank having a smaller capacity than the first. A flow meter measures the flow of water into the system and a controller directs the water into the first treatment tank when the inflow is above a designated flow rate and to the second treatment tank when the inflow is at or below the designated flow rate.
A transportable water treatment system Essanell Hire Pty Ltd Australian Patent No. 2011101185 Priority Date: 15 September 2011 Publication Date: 13 October 2011 Status: Granted Innovation Patent		A transportable water treatment system that comprises an inlet and an outlet, a filter between the inlet and outlet and a pump for pressurising the tank so that treated water can be released remote from the tank. The inlet feeds into a network of looped diverters which distribute water evenly through the filter.
Distillation Robert Klyne Heavy Industries Australian Patent No. 2010201315 Priority Date: 1 April 2010 Publication Date: 20 October 2011 Status: Pending		A solar powered distillation device for producing fresh water from saline comprising a transparent structure that forms a greenhouse, a support in the form of floats for supporting the transparent structure above the surface of the saline water and a collector in the form of gutters for collecting condensation from the gas space defined by the transparent structure above the surface of the saline water.
Brine discharge assembly Empire Technology Development LLC Australian Patent No. 2010200965 Priority Date: 12 March 2010 Publication Date: 29 September 2011 Status: Pending		A brine discharge assembly for diluting brine before it is discharged. The assembly comprises a pipe through which the brine flows and multiple injectors for injecting diluent at multiple locations along the length of the pipe.
One kind of reclamation and bio-safety disposal method for cyaniding tail slurry China National Gold Group Corporation Technology Centre and Changchun Gold Research Institute Australian Patent No. 2010101479 Priority Date: 11 January 2010 Publication Date: 4 August 2011 Status: Granted Innovation Patent		A method of treating cyanide containing mine tailing slurry from, for example, the gold industry. The method comprises dosing the tailing slurry with hydrogen peroxide at different pH conditions.