Green Tech Finds a Way

Climate change is already affecting every country on every continent, and industries are now recognising that they must work quickly to increase their sustainability and decrease their carbon footprint. The IP community is a vital part of making this happen. Technology is central to addressing the climate crisis, and IP is necessary to protect innovation in green technology and ensure that green technologies find their way to market.

The IP industry has long recognised the importance of protecting and promoting green technologies. Many national IP offices offer programmes that aim to help green technologies reach the market faster. For example, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced the Green Technology Pilot Programme in 2009, which offered accelerated review of applications covering green technology. The programme was a success and, although it closed after receiving 3,500 qualifying applications, the USPTO still offers routes for these inventions to receive accelerated examination. The UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) offers a similar programme, called the Green Channel, to fast-track applications covering green technology. Many other IP offices offer similar programmes. In view of these efforts to incentivise green technology patenting, it is perhaps no surprise that the number of patent applications on renewable energy and other sustainable technology has risen sharply over the past decade.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) similarly recognises IP’s importance in spurring innovation of green technologies to address climate change. The OECD identifies patents on these environmental technologies as an important “green growth indicator” and highlights IP as an important factor in encouraging collaboration on green technology development. The OECD publishes data showing its member countries’ investment and rate of patenting for green technologies. The goal of providing these data on patents is to promote use of cleaner technologies and to show green technology innovators the best places to invest and market their products to maximise uptake.

Even for green technologies that are already protected by a patent, IP still plays an important role in ensuring those technologies are adopted. The Eco-Patent Commons, founded by some of the world’s largest companies (IBM, Sony, Nokia, and Pitney Bowes), seeks to promote collaboration between business to create an avenue for accelerating innovation and market implementation of green technologies. Members can pledge patents that provide environmental benefits, which others may then use without paying a licence fee. The ultimate goal of the commons is for the contributed IP to catalyse further innovation that can help the environment by allowing companies to exchange ideas and build on each other’s inventions.

Given the importance of IP in promoting the creation and adoption of sustainable technologies, IP law firms have a responsibility to make green technology a focus of their practices to best serve their clients in this area. Finnegan has a clean energy & renewables working group that focuses on identifying and solving IP issues facing companies that invent and market green technologies. Finnegan’s clients work in every green technology area, from wind turbines and solar energy to biofuels and biobased chemicals to hybrid vehicles and pollution control systems. The working group seeks to understand the common IP challenges these companies face and develop efficient solutions to those challenges to help the companies obtain patents to protect their inventions and bring their technologies to market.