Filed under: Articles
Is the climate change debate being hijacked by the ongoing search for a technological fix, the idea that will solve all our problems? US commentator Auden Schendler certainly thinks so, and has railed against this view in a recent column.
But is this view fair? The strongest argument against a movement away from our current high emissions technologies in Australia is the price of alternative technologies. Whether we like it or not, coal, gas and oil are cheap and the alternatives are still expensive. Proponents of alternative technologies argue that the price of these technologies will fall rapidly with volume, scale and experience. No doubt this is true, but these prices do need to fall to be competitive in the long term.
But maybe, just around the corner, there is the breakthrough technology, the clean energy technology that has the clear potential to replace dirtier technology. In the early 20th century, one of the world’s important industries was the distribution of natural ice. Engineers worked long and hard on improved means of preserving ice. Then one day, in Geelong, mechanical refrigeration was invented to help ship meat to Europe. Sometimes breakthrough technologies matter.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean and sustainable technolgies, cleantech, export, innovation, intellectual property, patent, water
As a country which has continually had to deal with the scarcity of water, Australia is ideally placed to become a leader in the US$400 billion global water market. But a detailed analysis of our water innovation patents by Griffith Hack in the report ‘Pipeline to Profit?’ has found Australian companies are failing to leverage their valuable intellectual property (IP) into global markets.
The paper finds: “Few applicants are developing a critical mass of patented technology to support their export ambitions. Australian applicants are filing more patents in the water technology area than in most other areas, but the majority of these patents are for domestically oriented inventions.”
“It has been estimated that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which is recognised as an unsustainable rate,” notes Griffith Hack Senior Associate, Dr Mary Turonek.
“Australia has built up significant expertise in managing demand for water using technologies – and there is a potential for Australia to export this expertise to the world. But we are not securing our innovative ideas and products for the multi-billion-dollar export market.”
Click here for the full report.
Filed under: Articles
See this link for details on the Consensus Greentech Awards 2010. Nominations are now open from May through to August. These awards exist to reward excellence in Australian and New Zealand Green Technology and to grow and strengthen Australia’s and New Zealand’s contribution to sustainability in society.
Filed under: Articles
Griffith Hack is proud to be a sponsor of the ‘Spigot’ Online marketplace for new ideas, which is part of the Australian Innovation Festival.
The Spigot on-line market place is a virtual marketplace for new ideas. This allows registered participants to show their enthusiasm for new ideas by investing virtual currency and hence building the “market value” of your idea. Ideas can be submitted against four themes: “A Better Future for our Children” (ideas to help future generations); “Sustainable Environments” (climate control, green technology etc.); “The Connected World” (making use of the national broadband network); and “The Recovering Economy” (making Australia a more robust economy).
Ideas can be adapted and improved as feedback is received. Winning ideas providers will not only have their ideas showcased in the media but also be eligible for assistance in having their ideas commercialised through our innovation award sponsors; Griffith Hack, the Hargraves Institute and Business21C.
Even if you don’t submit an idea, for those participants who most actively contribute to developing ideas through constructive advice or investment can also be rewarded through prizes from our Reward Shop. Why not try your hand as a venture capitalist? By investing early in “winning” ideas your wealth will grow, potentially making you eligible for Reward Shop prizes.
One week before the close of the competition, a panel of expert judges will pick the 16 most prospective ideas to enter the final round. In the final week supporting votes and investments will be limited to the finalists to determine the overall winners.
While this a new concept for Australia, this type of ‘crowd-sourcing’ has been tested overseas, and may provide an interesting model for new business development. Interesting in learning more? Check it out here . Just be sure that you have thought about IP protection for your new concept before you post it. Once you post it, you can end up losing ownership rights to this idea. If in doubt, speak to us first.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: alternative energy, clean and sustainable technolgies, desalination, NATO
I came across this interesting article in “The Chemical Engineer” on two water desalination pilot plants being planned in Jordan and Israel, with the unlikely assistance of NATO.
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean and sustainable technolgies, experimental power station, norway, osmotic power, osmotic pressure, statkraft
Norway’s state owned power company Statkraft has announced the opening of the world’s first experimental power station powered by osmotic pressure.
Energy is provided by the pressure created when salt water is placed next to fresh water and joined by an osmotic filter. There is a strong tendency for fresh water to dilute the salt water, and this ‘osmotic pressure’ is equivalent to 120 metres of water head pressure, which would be a useful sized hydroelectric plant. Osmotic power is the opposite of reverse osmosis desalination, which relies on high pressure and energy intensive pumps to force water from a salt water to a fresh water source.
The biggest challenge has been to develop osmotic filters that can withstand this head pressure, but researchers have developed a polymer composition to meet these requirements.
Would this work in Australia once it is at commercial scale? This would require a good supply of fresh water next to sea water, i.e a river mouth. One advantage of this power supply is rivers flow 24/7, with the unfortunate exception of the Murray River.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: cleantech, climate change debate, emission trading scheme, energy, nuclear, nuclear power, Professor Barry Brook
Some of the politicians in the current debate about the emission trading scheme have raised the topic of nuclear power as a possible source of low carbon power.
Nuclear power is a proven technology, and in France provides 80% of electricity used at the lowest power prices in Europe. Nuclear power has its share of Australian supporters, such as Professor Barry Brook, Sir Hubert Wilkins Professor of Climate Change at the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute. While in Australia even talk of a nuclear power plant is anathema to local politicians, in France local municipalities compete to get a nuclear power plant due its ability to generate high technology jobs and lower regional taxes. Australia has enough nuclear reserves to last for many years, and improvements in nuclear technology may further extend the usable life of our reserves
Many questions remain. Nuclear power plants can be very expensive, and use a very large amount of concrete and steel in their construction, which in turn generate a lot of CO2 in their production. However nuclear power may have applications in other technologies. The Economist magazine published a letter in March 2009 by a heart patient who had an experimental plutonium 238-powered pacemaker implanted in 1976. It was about the size of a small can of tuna fish, and was still operating at near 98% efficiency some 33 years later. While nuclear powered pacemakers raise a number of questions, it does make you wonder what other unexplored innovation opportunities for nuclear power might be out there. As but one example of this, in 2004 Hyundai filed a patent for a nuclear fusion powered internal combustion engine.
Figure 1: Korean concept for nuclear fusion power internal combustion engine.
One possible option could be for smaller scale nuclear plants. Toshiba and the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) are jointly developing a 10 MW reactor, claiming that this reactor will be “self sustaining and can last for up to 30 years without refuelling, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy”.
An Australian subsidiary of Toshiba even filed an Australian provisional patent application titled “Applications of Small Nuclear Reactors in Power Generation Systems”, but this appears to have lapsed.
Does nuclear power deserve to regarded as a clean and sustainable technology? Apart from the question mark about the CO2 produced in their construction, there is little CO2 produced thereafter. The big issues are probably nuclear waste and what to do with the decommissioned reactor many years in the future. Quantities of nuclear waste tend to be very small, and there is scope to burn some types of nuclear waste in fast generation reactors. The decommissioned reactor problem may be a larger issue though. Many current nuclear power plants are being run for longer than their initial planned lifetimes, but eventually they will become uneconomic to run, and decommissioning costs may be large.
Of course all energy production technologies may cause problems. Wind farms can upset neighbours, but a decommissioned windmill should be of value to steel recyclers. Wave or geothermal power may need to be located a long way from power users, leading to unsightly high tension power lines running across the country. Hydro-dams can flood attractive valleys, as we saw with the Franklin dam proposal. Solar panels appear to be recyclable but also cause CO2 to be emitted in their production. Ethanol production from biomass in the US is controversial, but less so in Brazil.
So getting back to my original question, does nuclear power deserve to regarded as a clean and sustainable technology? There are strong arguments either way, but perhaps nuclear power should not be dismissed out of hand.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: all energy, clean and sustainable, clean and sustainable technolgies, energy production, innovation, intellectual property, inventors, tidal power, wave power
Although solar, wind and clean coal continue to attract the majority of the attention as clean energy options for the future, wave and tidal power may also play a major part in future energy production.
A recent visit to the All Energy Conference showed that there are at least three Australian companies developing wave technology. Namely: Biopower, Oceanlinx and CETCO, who are all developing alternative means of capturing wave or tidal energy.
New Zealand is also at the forefront of investing in wave power, with 14 different projects considered, ranging from capturing the deep sea energy in the Cook Strait that separates Wellington from the South Island; to capturing the energy in the strong tides in one of New Zealand’s largest harbours.
Wave power has tremendous potential as base load power as it is pretty reliable and available twenty four hours a day. However, there are also likely to be significant engineering challenges such as maintenance in some extreme environments. The combination of economic potential and engineering challenges is leading inventors to come up with a whole range of quite different solutions.
No one solution has started to dominate yet. From an IP viewpoint, this makes wave power perhaps more interesting than some other clean technologies, where the engineering is now starting to mature.
Another important question that developers need to consider is the breadth of the claims of their patents and their competitor’s patents. A smart innovator might find that while their patented invention did not succeed in its own right, their patents do claim a more successful invention developed by another company. Or vice-versa.
I for one will be watching this space with much interest in the future.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: cleantech, green car innovation fund, griffith hack, hybrid vehicle, innovation, intellectual property, investment, patent
Griffith Hack is pleased to announce the launch of the report: ‘Who holds the power? Lessons from hybrid car innovation for clean technologies.’
Australian companies and developers looking to benefit from the upcoming clean technology boom have been warned to think carefully about how they protect their ideas, following analysis of global patents in the rapidly expanding hybrid car market.
The report found that the market leader in hybrid technology has filed so many patents ahead of its rivals, that other major manufacturers are now being forced to use the technology ‘under licence’ or develop very different types of vehicles. This has very real implications for Australian innovators, including companies and researchers hoping to receive funding from the federal government’s $1.3 billion Green Car Innovation Fund.
As the report warns: “Failure to understand how companies compare to their competitors, may lead to wasted investment, infringement and a lack of commercial success.” “Growing concerns about energy security, climate change and pollution are motivating governments everywhere to introduce strong measures that favour innovation in clean technologies, such as hybrid cars,” notes co-author, Dr Justin Blows. “Our report shows that clean technology innovators are massively investing in IP, to ensure they remain competitive as the world moves into a new age of clean technology.”
Report co-author Mike Lloyd adds: “Hybrid car sales were non-existent until Toyota made a commitment to this sector after 1994, at a time when oil prices were low. The company’s initiative and aggressive patent filing strategy have, in turn, forced other motor companies to respond in a variety of ways. There are lessons here for all innovative companies, including those Australian organisations and individuals looking to make their mark on our motoring future.”
For the full report click here.
For further information on the report, please contact:
Mike Lloyd IP Portfolio Management Consultant Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group Griffith Hack
Tel: 03 9243 8315
Email: mike.lloyd@griffithhack.com.au
Dr Justin Blows Patent Attorney Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group Griffith Hack
Tel: 02 9925 5938
Mob: 0425 215 470
Email: justin.blows@griffithhack.com.au
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean and sustainable technolgies, innovation, intellectual property, Patents
The need for the world to develop new technologies to reduce the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment has led to calls by some to reduce the role of patents and other forms of IP in clean technologies. Patents and other IP provide a monopoly to their owners, which according to some pundits potentially reduces the spread and adoption of these planet saving technologies, potentially leaving us all worse off.
There are of course a wealth of reasons why IP ownership can help drive innovation by providing an incentive to invest in research and development. But maybe open innovation and IP ownership are not necessarily opposite approaches to development.
There is an argument being promoted by Marshall Phelps, IP Tsar for Microsoft, that clear IP ownership can actively help drive collaboration. Clear IP ownership gives IP owners and innovators the confidence take their ideas to market and look for collaborators and partners to help take these ideas forward.
The alternative to clear IP ownership in many cases is protecting new ideas as trade secrets or confidential information – which by its very nature will prevent the spread and likely slow the adoption of these ideas. In other words, IP ownership may actually assist open innovation….a radical thought for many, I know.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean and sustainable technologies, cleantech, Commercialisation, innovation, IP, Patents
Most organisations file patents to protect and maximise the value of products and processes that they are planning to develop themselves. However some organisations instead aim to benefit by selling or licensing their patents to other parties.
Selling or licensing patents is a complex activity, and increasingly organisations are arising especially to manage this activity, either on a commission or brokerage basis, or by buying these patents themselves and seeking new buyers. Effectively these latter types of organisation become a type of investment bank, using patents as an investment asset rather than investments in other companies. These organisations were recently discussed by the Economist.
So what does this mean for innovators in the clean energy space? Clean energy is attracting a lot of money and interest at the moment. Many technologies are comparatively new, and it may be possible to file broad patents. Innovators who are developing the right products and filing the right patents may have an alternative means of commercialising their intellectual property; namely selling or licensing IP to patent brokers.
However innovators can be assured that such brokers will look very carefully at the quality of the patent applications and patents secured, as often the patent is the main asset being sold. Innovators need to be very careful about their patent applications, patent strategy and the prior art in their technology areas, and seek careful advice.
Mike Lloyd
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean coal, climate change, patent, solar energy, technolgy
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Breaking News: Griffith Hack successful in petitioning the Australian Patent Office to fast track “green” patents. See here for more information
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Australia desperately needs a fast track system for the examination of patent applications for climate change mitigation technologies, such as clean coal and solar energy.
In our recent clean coal and solar energy reports, we discussed how Australian’s filed a minority of Australian clean coal and solar energy patent applications. The graphs below are extracted from these reports and show the number of patent applications filed per year by Australian and foreign applicants.
Because of the relatively low patent filing rates by Australians, Australia is set to miss out on business opportunities that will arise from innovating in the cleantech space and then protecting that innovation for commercial advantage. As international pressure increases for Australia to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions more cleantech will be bought and used, but it looks likely that most of the technology will be imported. We will not have much to export either. This is bad for just about every economic measure you can think of: Green jobs; government revenue; and the price of technological adaption & mitigation of climate change. It is also bad for the environment if adoption of these technologies are hindered as a result.
The commercialisation of climate change mitigation technology is essential to tackling climate change. Patents facilitate the transfer and diffusion of these technologies in the market. The faster patents can be issued the faster the technology will reach the market. Patents should be an integral part of Australia’s response to climate change. Strangely, as far as I know there has been discussion of this issue by neither Australian government nor industry.
Australian's filed a minority of Australian clean coal patents
Australian's filed a minority of Australian solar patents
One opportunity to turn the situation around is to fast track patent applications for green and particularly climate change mitigation technologies. This would allow Australian innovators to rapidly increase their patent counts and regain commercial competitiveness in an area that patents really do matter.
So how fast should an Australian patent fast track system be? The highly influential leading climatologist from NASA, Jim Hansen, recently said we have only four years left to act if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. But the delay in the issuance of examination reports is well over 1 year which is too long given the window of opportunity.
The UK has introduced a fast track system for green patents (here is the official UK press release). They promise that a green patent can be prosecuted to grant in 9 months. That is much more consistant with the window of opportunity available to us.
I do note that under Patent Regulation 3.17(2)(a) that The Comissioner of Patents may expedite examination of a patent if it is in the public interest to do so. Surely, there is no greater public interest then the fast tracking of climate change mitigation technology and I look forward to hearing from the Patent Office that they too will fast track green patent applications, perhaps under the public interest leg of this regulation.
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean coal, innovation, patent, solar energy, technology
Leading economists predict that the exploitation of clean and sustainable technologies (“cleantech”), have the potential to create wealth on the same scale as the introduction of the railways, electricity, cars and information & communications technology. There has been a strong growth in investment in this sector. The UN estimated a worldwide investment of US$155 billion in 2008 in sustainable energy technologies alone. Cleantech is one of the minority of business sectors that grew in 2008. And the future of Cleantech looks much bigger. China, for example, is considering investing around $560 billion in renewable energy technology. And that is just one country. The business opportunities in Cleantech are enormous and appear to be growing strongly.
There are some innovative solar technology companies in Australia. The privately held Victorian company Solar Systems has partnered with the Victorian government to build the world’s largest photovoltaic (PV) power plant near Mildura. Solar Systems developed technology that uses movable mirrors to follow the movement of the sun and concentrate the sunlight onto PV solar cells. Concentrating the sunlight reduces the area of expensive PV solar cells require. This and associated innovations were protected by Solar Systems filing patents around the world, assisted by Griffith Hack. Solar Systems have filed patents all around the world to protect their technology, which will play a useful role in bringing the technology to the wider market and subsequently reduce the world’s production of greenhouse gases.
Is Australia missing out on the Cleantech gold rush?
Consumers are showing signs of voting with their wallets as well. The latest version of the Prius has just gone on sale in Japan, and has surprised even Toyota by immediately becoming the top selling car in Japan. After just half a month of sales Toyota has received 110,000 orders for the new Prius, which compares well with their global sales target of 400,000 per year. Toyota have protected the Prius hybrid technology with over 1200 patents around the world.
Owners of technology are often keen to protect their investment with patent protection and thus the number of patent filings tends to track the number of innovations. Unfortunately analysis of recent Australian solar and clean coal patent filing data by Griffith Hack suggests that while leading Australian firms such as Solar Systems are protecting their future, overall there is in general a relatively low rate of solar and clean coal innovation by Australian firms.
This suggests a future where Australian solar and clean coal energy producers are largely reliant on imported technology. Perhaps Australian firms need to be reminded that in the largest ‘real’ gold rush the world has ever seen, namely the Victorian gold rush in the mid 1800′s, that some of the largest fortunes were made by equipment suppliers to the miners, rather than the miners themselves.
Mike Lloyd & Justin Blows
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean and sustainable technologies, cleantech, griffith hack, innovation, intellectual property, patent, solar, solar energy, solar power
Griffith Hack is pleased to announce the launch of the report ‘Australian solar innovation: losing our place in the sun’.
We may be one of the world’s sunniest places, but analysis of solar energy patents filed during the past five years, highlight that Australia is at risk of missing out on the new gold rush involving clean and sustainable technologies.
Leading economists have already noted that clean energy technology has the potential to create wealth on the same scale as the introduction of the railways, electricity, cars and, more recently, IT.
The report ‘Australian Solar Innovation – Losing Our Place In The Sun’ finds that we are being left behind, in the race to properly protect the ideas that will drive economic benefits into the future.
“Australia’s weak performance in the utilisation of solar power is at odds with the quality of our innovators,” the report notes. “We have produced the world’s first solar billionaire in Dr Zhengrong Shi (who founded the Nasdaq-list Suntech), while Dr David Mills, formerly of the University of Sydney, founded the Californian company Ausra which is helping to lead solar innovation in the United States”
For the full report click here.
For further information on the report, please contact Mike Lloyd or Dr Justin Blows.
Mr Mike Lloyd
IP Portfolio Management Consultant
Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group
Griffith Hack
Tel: 03 9243 8315
Email: mike.lloyd@griffithhack.com.au
Dr Justin Blows
Patent Attorney
Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group
Griffith Hack
Tel: 02 9925 5938
Mob: 0425 215 470
Email: justin.blows@griffithhack.com.au
Filed under: Articles | Tags: clean and sustainable, cleantech, intellectual property
In this article taken from Australian Anthill Magazine (April/May/June edition), Justin Blows discusses the importance of getting Intellectual Property in order from the get go, with a particular focus on emerging clean and sustainable businesses.
Permission for use given by Australian Anthill Magazine.
Filed under: Articles | Tags: patent, developing nations, climate change technology, tariff barrier, technology transfer
Tim Wilson
Last week the latest United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting concluded in Bonn, Germany. A core focus of the meeting’s work program was the role of technology to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in a post-Kyoto agreement, and rightly so.
If a post-Kyoto agreement is to be negotiated at the December Copenhagen meeting later this year it is likely to include emissions reduction targets for developing and developed countries alike. Developing countries are particularly sensitive about reducing emissions when their economies still require significant growth to lift people out of poverty. Technology provides the opportunity to reduce emissions and continue economic growth.
Technology matters because it provides options to reduce emissions from existing sources of energy (such as carbon capture and storage), decrease demand for energy through more efficient consumption (such as fluorescent lamps) and utilise new low/no-emissions energy production (such as solar panels and wind farm).
There is no dispute about the vital role of low-carbon technologies in achieving carbon dioxide reduction targets. At the Bonn UNFCCC meeting Indian government official, Ajay Mathur, argued “technology is the only way”.[1]
But there is a problem many developing countries are raising in accessing these technologies – price. Low-carbon technologies are often expensive, especially on the scale required for developing countries to meet prospective emissions reduction commitments. And many are blaming patents.
Opponents of patents on low-carbon technology are arguing they unnecessarily increase the price of technologies and therefore reduce access and technology transfer. Their solution is to reinvent the campaign against patents on pharmaceuticals by arguing for compulsory licensing options.
In submissions to a working group of the UNFCCC countries submitted their ideas of what should be included in a post-Kyoto agreement. Submissions from a number of countries identified the need for looking at the role patents play in technology transfer. The submission from China called for policy instruments to be considered, including “compulsory licensing for patented ESTs (environmentally sound technologies), etc.”.[2]
Similar proposals were put by Cuba. They argued “technology mechanism(s) should also give consideration to the role of patent protection and IPR’s along with an examination of their impact on the access to and transfer of technology that may significantly booster (sic) the capacity of developing countries to address climate change”.[3]
These proposals are only the latest salvo in the campaign against patents on low-carbon technology.
The campaign originated in 2007 around that year’s G8 meeting. In the lead up to the meeting press reports called for “an agreement on … IPRS on technological efforts in developing countries paralleling the successful agreement on compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals”.[4]
Some activists are going further, than compulsory licensing. International NGO, Friends of the Earth, has called for the removal of patents on low-carbon technology all together. Friends of the Earth has advocated “amend(ing) TRIPs (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) … so that developing countries can exclude from patentability green technologies”.[5]
And the campaign gained significant traction at the December 2007 UNFCCC Bali Summit. During the Bali Summit there was an informal meeting of Trade Ministers discussing the relationship between climate change and trade policy. At a side-event on the Monday following the informal meeting Indonesian Trade Minister, Mari Pangestu, commented that Trade Ministers discussed using flexibilities provided for in the World Trade Organisation’s TRIPS Agreement.
TRIPS currently provides for countries to compulsory license patented technologies in cases of “national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency or in cases of public non-commercial use”.[6] But the flexibility mechanisms were primarily designed for use in the case of pharmaceuticals, not low-carbon technology.
By the end of the Bali Summit developing countries had negotiated for anti-IP language into the Bali Road Map, stating countries should avoid “intellectual property rights policies, or lack thereof, restricting transfer of technologies”.[7] And it is within the context of this language that governments are now strongly pushing against patents on low carbon technology.
But the text of the Bali Road Map also hit on an important point – a lack of intellectual property rights can also negatively impact on the diffusion of technology.
The World Bank has found that weak IP regimes are undermining the transfer of climate friendly technologies.[8] Professor Barton of Stanford Law School has come to similar conclusions, arguing intellectual property is not a “significant” barrier to technology transfer of low-carbon technology and that weak IP regimes provide disincentives for foreign investors to transfer their technology.[9]
The Stern Review came to similar conclusions arguing “there are a number of measures that governments can take to create a suitable investment climate for energy investment and the adoption of new technologies, such as … strengthening intellectual property rights”.[10]
And removing patents will have a very real impact on innovation of next-generation low carbon technologies. Patents provide the temporary property right to offset the risks associated with investment into speculative innovation. Many low carbon technologies are incredibly immature. As Chris Israel from the Institute for Policy Innovation argued in his paper on the subject matter, the low carbon technology industry is at a comparable stage as the semiconductor and biotechnology industries were 35 and 25 years ago respectively.[11]
Attacking patents is a distraction from the real challenges that face reducing the cost of low carbon technologies. Low carbon technologies are often expensive because of the costs of adaptation of the individual technology and labor and material costs. The cost impact of a patent on a wind farm is miniscule in comparison to the labor and material costs of its construction. Similarly, the cost impact of a patent for adapting a coal fire powered power plant to be able to capture carbon dioxide for storage is also insignificant to the labor and material costs.
But the cost barrier of these technologies is real. However, countries can do something to reduce the cost of low-carbon technology – remove taxes and tariffs. A 2007 World Bank report International Trade and Climate Change, investigated the role of tariff barriers on ‘green’ technologies. The study found that the diffusion of technologies would increase by between 7 and 14 per cent per year based on different models of liberalisation.[12]
Applied average tariff and NTBs for climate friendly technologies in the 18 high-GHG-emitting developing countries
And the table above identifies why tariffs are a problem. Amongst the top 18 developing country emitters of greenhouse gases, the combined tariff and non-tariff barriers can be as high as 165 per cent on some technologies.
Simplistically removing patents may appear to support the diffusion of low carbon technologies, but it will actually undermine it. Removing patents will discourage investment and undermine the tradable nature of property rights that patents confer. Undermining licensing of these technologies will discourage foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing countries to transfer technologies.
The cost of undermining patents is well understood. Hence previous international environmental treaties, including the Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Kyoto Protocol, recognise the contribution that property rights play in transferring environmental technologies to the countries that need them. Sometimes history is worth repeating.
Tim Wilson is Director of the IP and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs – www.ipa.org.au
1 ___, 07/04/2009, “India has a bright idea at climate talks”, The Hindu, at http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200904071911.htm
2 Government of China, 06/02/2009, “China’s views on the fulfilment of the Bali Action Plan and the components of the agreed outcome to be adopted by the conference of the parties at its 15th session”, Paper Number 5 in the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the Convention”, 13/03/2009
3 Government of Cuba, 13/03/2009, “The fulfilment of the Bali Action Plan and the components of the agreed outcome to be adopted by the Conference of the Parties at its fifteenth session (AWG-LCA). Submission of Views”, , Paper Number 7 in the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the Convention”, 13/03/2009
4 Madhavan, N., 06/06/2007, “China and India set to make common cause on global warming”, Hindustan Times, 06/06/2007, at http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/FullcoverageStoryPage.aspx?sectionName=&id=d6e876b4-17c3-453a-b29b-c3ece7cec32fG8Summit2007_Special&Headline=India+hardens+stand+on+climate+change
5 Raman, M., 27/06/2007, “Climate and Trade”, Friends of the Earth International and Malaysia, p2
6 World Trade Organisation, 1995, “Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement”
7 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2007, “Bali Road Map”, p18
8 World Bank, 2007, “International Trade and Climate Change: Economic, Legal and Institutional Perspectives”, p59
9 Barton, J., 02/2008, “Patenting and access to clean energy technologies in developing countries”, WIPO Magazine, at http://www.wipo.in/wipo_magazine/en/2008/01/article_0003.html
10 Stern, N., “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change”, Part IV, 2006, p6
11 Israel, C., 05/2008, “Don’t kill the green goose: The Importance of Stimulating and Rewarding Clean Energy Breakthroughs”, IPI Ideas, n48, p1
12 World Bank, 2007, “International Trade and Climate Change: Economic, Legal and Institutional Perspectives”, p53
Filed under: Articles | Tags: Australian patent, clean and sustainable technologies, cleantech, patent, patent reform, technology
The Australian government, through IP Australia, believes that Australian patentability standards are too low, particularly the threshold for inventive step and the level of disclosure required. It argues the case in this recent report. Patents, it is argued, reward invention of sufficient merit by granting a monopoly of limited term in return for a full disclosure of the invention so that others can perform it after the monopoly ceases.
IP Australia believes that now the deal is too favourable for the patentee, especially those of incremental inventions. Consequently, they propose that the inventive step threshold and disclosure requirements be raised.
Will Australian patent reform throw the cleantech baby out with the bathwater?
The wrong patent reform may severely damage both the Australian clean and sustainable technologies industry and the Australian economy. Let’s get this straight: this is a big deal. The biggest economic opportunity for countries like Australia is, in the opinion of economists like Nicolas Stern, a mass exploitation of clean and sustainable technologies. This has the potential to create wealth on the same scale as the introduction of the railways, electricity, cars, and information technology, for example. Some of these technologies are going to be old, like roof insulation and energy efficiency, but others, like solar and green vehicles, will be new technologies. The economic rewards for a vibrant clean and sustainable technologies industry in Australia are potentially very large.
The consultation brings up the contentious topic of patent thickets which are, according to the paper, an overlapping set of patent rights requiring those who wish to commercialise new technology to seek multiple licenses from multiple patentees. The paper notes that patent thickets are most likely to occur in complex technologies. Clean and sustainable technologies – such as the smart grid and solar cells – are complex technologies. Many advances in clean and sustainable technologies are not so much disruptive, as incremental in nature.
Surely, however, that is not to say that the advances do not deserve protection and reward? The older variants of the technology, for which patent protection has expired, are still available for use, and not locked away. Surely the existence of the older variants ensures that any mark up reflects an increase in efficiency attributable to the patented improvement? Surely this is the right approach, and one that is well argued in the report Are IPR a Barrier to the Transfer of Climate Change Technology. How else would clean and sustainable technology innovation be encouraged? While so called patent thickets are often raised as an issue, in practice these problems are usually solved quite effectively by cross-licensing, creating standard-setting bodies and by developing patent pools where these do not breach competition laws, as is well argued in the report Intellectual property rights: The Catalyst to Deliver Low Carbon Technologies.
The first patent thicket precipitated the Sewing Machine War of the 1850′s. The sewing machine was, in the context of the period a staggering invention, immensely complicated, and of enourmous social and industrial consequence. It mechanized sewing and clothing production, freeing countless seamstresses from appalling working conditions. And, there was a lot of money to be made in the making and selling of sewing machines. This opportunity was not lost on the many inventors that each invented one or more of the approximately ten ‘breakthrough’ elements required to make the machine function.
Would have the sewing machine been invented if each of these inventors had no way of being paid for their individual contribution? As described in this excellent paper by Adam Mossoff, the inventors respective patents allowed them to find their own commercial solution – in this case by pooling their patent together and selling licenses to other manufacturers – which enabled each of the inventors to profit. Could convoluted legislation really find such a creative and satisfactory solution to what is essentially a commercial problem of rewarding inventors or their companies?
Mossoff argues that the current discourse on patent thickets is empirically impoverished and, by implication, disconnected with the commercial realities of getting technology to market. The solution of the Sewing Machine War, for example, reveals the innovative ways in which patent-owners can rescue themselves from commercial gridlock, and in so doing, unleash an explosion in productivity and innovation in a product that was central to the success of the Industrial solution. If legislative change was not needed for the industrial revolution, why is it needed for the clean and sustainable technology revolution?
Indeed, it is often assumed that ‘incremental’ inventions are not as worthy of patent protection, but the story of the Sewing Machine War shows that important innovation happens in a series of seemingly incremental inventions, and that incremental inventions need every bit as much encouragement by the patent system as ‘eureka’ inventions. The powerful personal computers of today are very different from those 25 year ago, but do you remember like I do that the difference from one year to the next was never staggering?
Raising the bar will make it easier to invalidate a patent but there is no evidence to my knowledge that Australian clean and sustainable technology patents actually suffer from a quality problem. Rather, raising the bar may have the perverse effect of increasing the costs and effort required for obtaining a patent. An attorney may feel obliged to draft a thicker specification containing information that every one knows anyway. The attorney may also need to argue with a patent examiner over legal technicalities that have little connection with the true value of the patent. Raising the bar may also encourage lawyers to ‘have a go’ at a patent on legal technicalities that, again, have little connection with its true value. The reforms may also encourage infringement of patent rights because the infringer will have a greater opportunity to invalidate the patent they infringe. Once it is understood that patent rights have been devalued in Australia, the venture capital essential for the success of many clean and sustainable technology companies will be more difficult to obtain, slowing down the development of the industry.
Rather than aid the clean and sustainable technology industry the reforms have the potential to bog down the industry in patent prosecution and litigation. Perversely, the proposed changes may actually lessen industries’ use of the patent system and decrease the rate of innovation that the patent system seeks to foster, at least for the Clean and sustainable technology industry. This may leave commercially important Australian inventions unprotected. Australian industry is sensitive to patent related costs. Australia may fail to develop its own strong and prosperous clean and sustainable technology industry and the economic benefits and green jobs that it will create. Less patent applications means fewer disclosures of new technologies. Some of these new technologies may instead be kept secret and be forever unavailable to others. This would hinder the diffusion of clean and sustainable technologies during a time when the planet desperately needs them.
One has to wonder whether the backlog of patents waiting to be examined by IP Australia is a major motivation for the proposed changes. Rather than employ enough high quality examiners to enforce the existing patent standards in a timely fashion, is IP Australia being pressured to cut corners and save costs by raising the bar to drive down the number of patent applications filed? That can’t be good for protecting Australia’s clean and sustainable technologies.
How is this for an idea: Why don’t we recognise the very important work IP Australia and its examiners do and give them the support they need for top-notch and timely patent examinations. Australian patent quality may be significantly improved by more rigorous examination against the existing patentability standards, without having to raise the bar.
Finally, for the interested, IP Australia is particularly concerned with the legal concepts of inventive step, full description and fair basis. These can be quite tricky to apply, however all of them are prerequisites for an invention to be patentable. An invention that is not obvious to a Person Skilled in the Art in light of the prior art has an inventive step. The patent specification must describe the invention fully, including the best method known to the applicant of performing the invention. The claims must be fairly based on the matter disclosed in the specification.
Filed under: Articles | Tags: alternative energy, clean and sustainable technolgies, climate change, patent, report
Griffith Hack is pleased to announce the launch of the report ‘Clean Coal Technologies: Where Does Australia Stand?’
Analysis of patents for clean coal technologies, filed during the past five years, indicates Australia is at risk of losing its competitive edge on its biggest export earner.
The analysis has been completed by the ‘Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group’ of Griffith Hack. The Griffith Hack Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group provides intellectual property services to organisations that develop technologies with a reduced environmental impact.
“As the world’s leading exporter of coal, Australia should be well placed to drive clean coal technology,” the report notes. “Our research shows we’re falling behind. The analysis suggests we are filing fewer clean coal patents, with less commercial value, than foreign entities. This may erode Australia’s capability to commercialise clean coal innovation.”
For the full report click here.
For further information on the report please contact Mike Lloyd.
Mr Mike Lloyd
IP Portfolio Management Consultant
Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group
Griffith Hack
Tel: 03 9243 8315
Email: mike.lloyd@griffithhack.com.au
Filed under: Articles | Tags: climate change, clean and sustainable technologies, technolgy, climate change mitigation technologies
I’m currently reading the free book Sustainable Energy – without the hot air by David JC MacKay, an academic from The University of Cambridge.
I’m impressed. This book convincingly investigates the energy needs of an average person (including food, transport, space heating, light, stuff, farming, gadgets) in the developed world and explores energy options for a sustainable future. The emphasis is on estimating hard numbers for the limits of what can be physically achieved. While written for the UK specifically, many of the lessons will hold for Australia and other countries.
The book convincingly argues that a sustainable energy future is possible, but wow, big changes are on the way.
Filed under: Articles
According to this report, the Mexican desert plant agave has been nominated as potential sources of biofuels for Australia, and funding is being sought for trial plantings. Ethanol made from agave will already be familiar to Australian drinkers of tequila.
One of the claimed benefits of agave compared to other crops is that it does not compete with food crops for high quality growing country, so removing a potential criticism of biofuels. In recent times this has also been claimed as a benefit for growing the Central American plant jatropha, and also for the enzymatic conversion of forestry residual into biofuels and bioplastics.
