It’s been a slow start for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Green Technology Pilot Program, which was launched in December to fast-track the evaluation of patent applications for green technology. Although the USPTO has basically defined what green technology does, it is much harder to define what constitutes a patentable invention in this area. Most of the technology being developed to improve the environment is little more than an incremental change in devices already in use, says Finnegan partner Eric Raciti. Raciti adds that although anything that creates energy and reduces reliance on fossil fuels could be considered green, the actual technology that does this often draws on an interdisciplinary set of components from other areas. Raciti worked for five years at the USPTO as a patent examiner in the medical device arts.
