Filed under: Feature
Eco Investor Forum brings together Australia’s leading environmental companies and investors.
The Forum will present 20 of the leading listed and unlisted companies and funds across the environmental investment spectrum:
- ASX 300 companies,
- Emerging companies with sales and profits,
- Micro cap companies with innovative technologies,
- Unlisted companies with innovative technologies, and
- Australian and international environmental equities funds.
Meet the companies and learn about investing in coal seam gas, geothermal energy, wave energy, ceramic fuel cells, clean energy retailing, air and water purification, plantation forestry, lighting efficiency, international environmental equities, managing a green portfolio.
Network with the companies and other environmental investors.
Who Should Attend:
The Forum will benefit:
- Environmental investors who manage their own share portfolio or self-managed super fund
- Institutional investors with an interest in environmental, cleantech, ethical and sustainability investment opportunities
- Financial advisers
- Business advisers
- Environmental companies open to investment
- Government officers, lawyers, accountants and other professionals
To learn more about the Forum download the brochure by Clicking Here.
Filed under: Feature
The Partners of Griffith Hack are pleased to invite you and your colleagues to a seminar not to be missed!
To view the seminar invitiation, please CLICK HERE
With guest speakers:
Professor Tony Vassallo, Delta Electricity Chair in Sustainable Energy Development, University of Sydney
Professor Tony Vassallo will present an overview of the drivers, challenges and opportunities for the widespread deployment of renewable and sustainable energy technologies in Australia. The talk will start with a description of the current technology and deployment of solar, wind and other renewable technologies, followed by a brief look at residential and commercial gas cogeneration. The challenges of intermittency will be outlined, concluding with a look at how energy storage might provide solutions to successful large scale integration of renewable energy sources and the potential synergies with an electric transport fleet.
Dr Justin Blows, Patent Attorney, Griffith Hack
Griffith Hack patent attorney Justin Blows will tell a dark tale of the strategies employed by the manufactures, R&D companies, and individuals that are active in the shadowy world of Hybrid vehicle IP. Patent, license, and litigation strategies that have been employed to gain commercial advantage will be discussed.
Please RSVP to anna.mccabe@griffithhack.com by Thursday 6th August.
Last night I heard Robert Richardson from Austrade talk about government assistance programs for clean and sustainable technologies.
There are quite a lot out there. Unfortunately they are spread across a multitude of agencies and can be hard to find so persistence in your googling is required to ferret them all out.
Some of the programs mentioned include:
COMET
Renewables Australia
Solar Flagships Program
Various carbon capture and storage programs
National Clean Coal Fund
Energy Innovation Fund
Solar Cities
Clean Energy Innovation Centre
Climate Ready
soon, Innovation for Climate Change (watch out for announcement)
NSW Renewable Energy Innovation Fund
AusIndustry-Retooling for Climate Change
Austrade Export Market Development Grant
Austrade Clean Energy Trade and Investment Strategy
Export Finance and Insurance Corporation
Energy Users Association of Australia
There is also a R&D tax concession.
This list will undoubtedly change so having a look at the websites of the relevant agencies is probably a good idea. Also, try www.business.gov.au.
Perhaps the Clean Energy Innovation Centre is the most interesting. The Clean Energy Innovation Centre has recently been established to help small and medium size businesses in the clean energy industry to improve their productivity and competitiveness by providing professional business advisory and development services. The Centre will also help to build collaboration between researchers and businesses, and assist clean energy businesses to access the latest technologies and market specific information.
The CEIC will provide a Business Adviser to conduct a comprehensive review of an eligible clean energy firm that identifies its strengths and weaknesses, strategic business issues, potential areas for business improvement and potential areas for growth. For business improvement or change recommendations from the business review which require the assistance of an external service provider, the CEIC will reimburse the firm for 50% of the costs of engaging the service provider to a maximum reimbursement of $20,000.
Clean energy companies include those involved in the production of energy from renewable or low carbon sources includes solar, wind, wave, tidal, low-emission coal, biofuels, and geothermal as well as in the supply chains of the production process. Other clean energy related initiatives may also be considered.
The CEIC will also be a key element of the network for the clean energy sector and will be able to connect clean energy firms, even if they are not eligible for a business review. Another program available through CEIC is the Researchers in Business Program where researchers from universities, the CSIRO and public research agencies are placed within clean energy firms to help develop and implement a new idea. Funding for up to 50% of salary costs to a maximum of $50,000 is available for placements of 2 to 12 months.
According to this article, the U.S. now has just over 29,000 megawatts of wind power installed, making it the clear global leader in wind power. Wind power capacity is also increasing faster in the US than any where else.
Filed under: News | Tags: clean and sustainable technologies, cleantech, technology, venture capital
According to this article, clean technology venture investments in North America, Europe, China and India, totaled $1.2 billion across 94 companies during 2Q09.
According to this article, Moree Plains Shire Council is about to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Australian owned company Cubic QED, to manufacture biodiesel from algae.
Filed under: News | Tags: Australia, Better Place, electric vehicle, plug in hybrid vehicles, technology
According to this news article, Better Place – a company that plans to roll out electric car battery charging points and battery swap stations every where – has selected Canberra as the first Australian city to launch operations.
Filed under: Feature
At last the NSW Government has offered some skerrick of support to the NSW R&D community, but will this establish NSW as the hub of Cleantech for the Asia-Pacific?
APP, 20 July 2009
The NSW government will offer a $5 million prize for the best clean energy project developed in partnership with a state university and business.
Premier Nathan Rees says the prize sends a signal to the international community that NSW is serious about research and innovation, as well as finding a clean energy solution.
“NSW remains, along with other states, dependent on coal-fired power generation,” Mr Rees told reporters in Sydney.
“I want to change, I want to change that as quickly as we possibly can. In doing that our goal is a state which will be a national and international leader in clean energy technology.”
To be eligible for the NSW energy challenge prize, research teams must have two essential partners – a NSW university and a company headquartered within the state.
Mr Rees said he imagined judges would look for “cutting edge research” which could lead to a project that can be rolled out as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
“There is always speculation about how quickly a particularly renewable source can be brought to market,” Mr Rees said.
“This is why this prize has been announced … to address that.”
The announcement followed the first University Government Business Forum, with representatives from each of those sectors discussing global challenges facing NSW.
Filed under: Feature
The Australia – New Zealand Climate Change & Business Conference series is the leading conference in the region, engaging mainstream business and policy makers on the climate change issue and helping to facilitate action. The conference series focuses on the risks and opportunities posed to business by global warming and, as an Australia-New Zealand entity, promotes the exchange of ideas and learnings across the Tasman.
For more information and to register Click Here
Filed under: Feature
According to this report by the CSIRO, innovative advancement on conventional battery design delivers low cost, long life, high performance power and provides a solution for future energy storage needs.
According to this report, there will be a 28% price drop for cell-based and thin film solar panels and modules in 2009. Installed system prices will fall about 9%.
Filed under: Feature | Tags: climate change, renewable energy, UK, wind energy
According to this report, the UK will source one third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, mostly wind. This may mean 7,000 new wind turbines in the UK.
It is reported that every sector of the economy will be expected to cut emissions, although electricity generation and heavy industry will bear about half of the reductions.
Filed under: News | Tags: intellectual property, patent, solar cell, South Korea
According to this article, the Korean Intellectual Property Office reports that Japanese and US companies file most of the thin film solar cells patent applications in South Korea.
Filed under: News | Tags: clean and sustainable technologies, cleantech, climate change, copenhagen 2009, intellectual property, patent, pope
Will an IP stand off between developed and developing nations block a global climate agreement?
Detractors of strong IP protection do not appreciate that it is free enterprise that is charged with the task of developing climate change mitigation and adaption technologies. Free enterprise will not be motivated to do so unless there are mechanisms, such as patents, to ensure that their investment in:
- research and development
- training people
- plant
- developing supporting industry and
- changing the regulatory environment, for example,
are not eroded by others riding 0n their coat tails.
Free enterprise is propelled forward by investment and patents facilitate a return on what is intrinsically a risky investment in developing technologies. Without protection of that investment it will be more difficult to find the investment that will push the climate change technologies we need into the market.
Around 70% of global R&D in green technology is spent by the private sector, around US$750 billion dollars a year (and rising), says Carl Horton, the Chief IP Counsel of General Electric (GE) in the web seminar Patenting Green: The Intersection of Patents and Green Technology. Mr Horton also believes that green technology transfer from the developed world to Brazil, India and China is currently progressing well largely because of the IP protection provided by these countries. He is worried that technology transfer will stall if IP rights are weakened. GE is one of the biggest generators of clean and sustainable technologies.
Patents facilitate licensing and diffusion of technologies. Without a patent what exactly are you transferring? A patent provides a well defined right, providing legal clarity and certainty in technology transfer transactions.
Weakening IP rights would undermine, not assist, clean technology transfer. It will also undermine green free enterprise, erroding their business, new jobs, and national income.
The Pope beleives weaker IP rights would promote tech transfer to the developing world
In a regrettable and worrying development, Pope Benedict XVI has also put forward a negative view on the role of intellectual property, presumably patents in particular, in the transfer of technology from the developed to the developing world. The Pope’s comments was used by some NGO’s at the recent G8 summit to argue that developing nations needed IP concessions (or even free IP) so that they can afford clean and sustainable (low carbon) technologies, as reported here.
The Pope’s comments were made in ENCYCLICAL LETTER CARITAS IN VERITATE, and the most relevant section is copied below in bold text although it is interesting to read the whole section:
22. Today the picture of development has many overlapping layers. The actors and the causes in both underdevelopment and development are manifold, the faults and the merits are differentiated. This fact should prompt us to liberate ourselves from ideologies, which often oversimplify reality in artificial ways, and it should lead us to examine objectively the full human dimension of the problems. As John Paul II has already observed, the demarcation line between rich and poor countries is no longer as clear as it was at the time of Populorum Progressio[55]. The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase. In rich countries, new sectors of society are succumbing to poverty and new forms of poverty are emerging. In poorer areas some groups enjoy a sort of “superdevelopment” of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation. “The scandal of glaring inequalities”[56] continues. Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries, both old and new, as well as in poor ones. Among those who sometimes fail to respect the human rights of workers are large multinational companies as well as local producers. International aid has often been diverted from its proper ends, through irresponsible actions both within the chain of donors and within that of the beneficiaries. Similarly, in the context of immaterial or cultural causes of development and underdevelopment, we find these same patterns of responsibility reproduced. On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care. At the same time, in some poor countries, cultural models and social norms of behaviour persist which hinder the process of development.
In my opinion, the Pope has received advice that, regrettably, is ignorant of the role IP plays.
Clearly, the debate about the role of IP in transferring clean and sustainable technologies to the developing world is now a main stream issue.
Filed under: News | Tags: Australian patent, clean and sustainable technolgies, cleantech, patent
I previously blogged on why patent applications for clean and sustainable technologies should be fast tracked through the Australian Patent Office.
I am pleased to say that in response to my request of them, the Australian Patent Office will now fast track any cleantech patent application on request. The email I received from the office confirming this is copied below.
Australia will fast track cleantech patent applications
Dear Dr Justin,
Thankyou for your email enquiry regarding the fast tracking of climate change mitigation technology, 11 June 2009. I understand that you have been advised that expedited examination under Regulation 3.17(2) is available to your clients for “fast tracking” applications by one of my colleagues and that I would be contacting you as well.
IP Australia has decided to make a formal notification on our Web page to this effect. You will see this notification in the information banner at http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/ in the coming weeks.As you no doubt realise expedited examination is not unique to climate change mitigation technology however under this regulation if the Commissioner is satisfied that the expedited examination is either in the public interest or there are special circumstances that make it desirable it will be expedited.
In line with your request it is the opinion of the Commissioner that an application for climate change mitigation technology would satisfy the requirements of being in the public interest and hence such a request would be suitable. It is expected that in most technologies (depending on the current workload) that expedited examination request would be considered within around 4-8 weeks.
Yours Sincerely
Victor Portelli
General Manager
Patents and Plant Breeders Rights Group
IP Australia
Filed under: News | Tags: clean and sustainable technology, patent, prius, technology, Toyota
The Wall Street Journal quoted Griffith Hack patent attorney Justin Blows:
Toyota’s patent-filing strategy has made it far too risky to copy the Prius without Toyota’s blessing.
Since it started developing the gas-electric Prius more than a decade ago, Toyota has kept its attorneys just as busy as its engineers, meticulously filing for patents on more than 2,000 systems and components for its best-selling hybrid. Its third-generation Prius, which hit showrooms in May, accounts for about half of those patents alone.
Toyota’s goal: to make it difficult for other auto makers to develop their own hybrids without seeking licensing from Toyota, as Ford Motor Co. already did to make its Escape hybrid and Nissan MotorCo. has for its Altima hybrid.
Read more about Toyota’s patent strategy in relation to Hybrid vehicles in the WSJ article here.
Read Justin’s other blogs on Toyota’s patents here.
