The latest PCT Newsletter published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) is promoting the WIPO Green platform as a way to match GreenTech innovators with commercialisation partners.

The initiative from WIPO is a welcome move towards facilitating collaboration and development of green technologies which mitigate climate change, reduce environmental pollution and promote sustainable resource use.

The WIPO Green platform consists of a searchable “matchmaking” database and a service network.  Innovators can publicise their green technologies on the database and make contact with potential partners with a view to securing licensing or partnership agreements. 

The database also enables users to input specific green technology needs with calls to innovators to meet those needs with environmentally sound technologies.

The service network component of the initiative will facilitate partnerships by providing training, advice on licensing, and assistance with obtaining financial support.  It will also provide links to technology experts worldwide.

The initiative provides both technology providers and technology seekers with opportunities for collaboration with international organizations, companies, non-governmental organizations, research institutions and SMEs.

Currently, major technology providers signed up to the initiative include CERN (Switzerland), Fujitsu (Japan), General Electric Company (United States), Hitachi (Japan), Honda Motor Co. (Japan), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States), Stanford University (United States) and the University of Geneva (Switzerland).

Technology seekers include the Association for Environmental Management and Development (AGED) (Burkina Faso), KOE Technology Investment co., Ltd. (China), Shanghai Technology Transfer Exchange (China) and SIG (Switzerland).

Licensing of any intellectual property relating to the green technologies (e.g. patents, designs or trade secrets) will be governed by individually negotiated agreements between the parties involved.

The GreenTech category with most technologies listed on the WIPO Green database is currently alternative energy production with 22 technologies.  Other technology categories include include waste management (13 technologies), energy conservation (8), agriculture / forestry (2) and transportation (2).

The WIPO Green initiative provides much needed opportunities for all parties to engage with international organisations to develop and deploy their innovations on a global scale.

*Dr. Tim Stirrup is a Patent Attorney with Baldwins Intellectual Property in New Zealand and represents a number of clients in the Greentech sphere.

The Heslin Rothenberg firm’s Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) 2012 Year in Review was published earlier this month.  Always an interesting read, the CEPGI is a quarterly publication that tracks grants of U.S. patents directed to clean energy technologies.

The 2012 roundup reports that granted green patents hit an all time high of 3061 for last year, a rise of 730 patents, or more than 30%, over 2011.

The 2012 CEPGI technology breakdown shows biomass/biofuel patents with the biggest gain, up over 70%, growing from 104 patents in 2011 to 179 last year.  Solar patents rose by more than 60%, and wind and hybrid/electric vehicle patents were up 40%, though fuel cell patents grew by only 8% from 2011 to 2012.

However, the fuel cell sector was still the winner in total patent grants for 2012 with 1024.  Solar took second place with 862 patents, with wind in third place.  There were also 286 hybrid/electric vehicle patents granted in 2012, 61 tidal energy patents, 21 hydroelectric patents, and 14 geothermal patents.

The number one green patent holder for 2012 was Toyota, with 207 patents (which CEPGI dubs the “Prius effect”).  GE, with 175 patents, took second place, with GM in third place with 122.  Samsung and Honda took fourth and fifth place, respectively, with 94 and 87 patents each. 

The rest of the top ten green patent holders consisted of Mitsubishi, Vestas, Siemens, Hyundai, and Ford.

One interesting finding is that the population of green patentees expanded substantially in 2012.  More particularly, there were over 1000 entities granted clean energy patents in 2012, 200 more than in the previous year.

The CEPGI also includes more detailed data broken down by subsector and geography.  More info on the CEPGI can be found here.

The Latvian Patent Office (LPO) announced today the launch of an accelerated examination program for green technology patent applications which would grant patents in “about an hour.” 

Apparently, the astonishing turnaround time is possible because of the chronically underutilized staff of the LPO.  Since its modern inception in 1992, the LPO has employed just one part-time patent examiner who works 2-3 days a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and alternate Fridays from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM with an hour and a half for lunch and six 15-minute cigarette breaks).

The LPO has extremely light application volume in part because the current European patent system enables applicants to file in the European Patent Office, where substantive examination takes place, and simply validate any resulting patent in individual country patent offices like the LPO.

Applicants participating in the new fast track program will receive a first office action within 15 minutes of filing.  If the applicant is able to prepare and file a response by the half-hour mark, the LPO guarantees a final disposition (either final office action or patent grant) within an hour of the filing time.

One down side for participating applicants is that any continuations or divisional applications would have to be filed within 59 minutes and 59 seconds of the filing time of the parent application.

Jāzeps Pliekšāns Heinrihs Klapje de Kolongs Aleksandrs fon Freitāgs-Loringhofens, the LPO’s Director of Policy, is confident the office can deliver results in the promised time period:

If the glasses store can make glasses in about an hour, the Patent Office of the Republic of Latvia can grant a patent in the same time.  Glasses are complex plastic, metal or wire frames containing delicate discs of prescription glass.  Patents are just small stacks of paper.

Latvia joins a number of other countries that have instituted accelerated examination programs for green technology patent applications, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and Korea, but is by far the smallest market country to do so.

Some of the other green patent fast track programs such as those implemented by the Korean Intellectual Property Office and Brazil’s Institute of Industrial Property have received some heat for rules that smack of protectionism such as requiring the applicant to have received funding or certification from the government (Korea), have a local corporate entity and office (Korea), or limiting eligibility to national applications (Brazil).

Clearly aware of these criticisms, the LPO fast track does accept national stage applications and has only minimal local requirements.  Rather than make the applicant establish a local office, for example, the fast track rules simply require that the applicant build a local bird house in the country suitable to support a family of White Wagtails, the national bird of Latvia. 

According to Dr. Klapje de Kolongs Aleksandrs fon Freitāgs-Loringhofens:

Applicants will be very delighted at the beautiful plumage of the White Wagtail and have the option to build the bird house in the capital, Riga, and the surrounding area or in the countryside, for example, in the Courland, Latgale, Vidzeme, or Zemgale regions.

The LPO’s fast track rulemaking committee settled on the bird house provision after failing to reach a consensus on a requirement for the applicant to take “substantial steps to support” the population of Latvia’s national insect, the two-spot ladybird.

While there is no additional fee for the green patent fast track program, the LPO suggests a mandatory donation for each participating patent application of at least 5 kilograms of amber, a fossilized tree resin which is one of Latvia’s most important cultural symbols.

The International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development just published a timely and informative report on the accelerated examination programs for green technology patent applications offered by a number of national patent offices around the world.

Antoine Dechezleprêtre, a Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, conducted the study and wrote the report.

Entitled “Fast-tracking Green Patent Applications,” the report is the first empirical analysis of these programs.  It addresses important questions such as the number of patents accelerated under the programs, the technologies of participating applications, whether and how much the programs reduce time from filing to grant, the value of fast tracked patents, and knowledge diffusion of the patented inventions.

Data were analyzed for the programs in Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US).  Brazil and China now have green patent fast track programs, and are discussed briefly, but they are too new to be analyzed in the study.

The study looked at the volume of green patents accelerated in each program as well as the proportion of participating applications as a share of total green patents.  It found that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had by far the most patents (3,533), followed by the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) with 776 and the Korea Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) with 604.

For most programs, a very small share of the average annual number of green patents participated.  In Australia, Canada, Japan and Korea between 1% and 2% of green patents requested acceleration, though the percentages were substantially higher in the US (8%), Israel (13%), and the UK (20%).  A related finding is that the vast majority of participants in the US and UK programs were domestic applicants, with only small percentages applying to the programs from abroad.  Perhaps harmonization of the programs, as I suggested here, would boost participation particularly across borders.

The study found that technologies relating to climate change, particularly renewable energy, comprised the vast majority of fast tracked patents, with some variations across different countries.  In the US, wind power was the major technology (boosted significantly by GE, by far the number one assignee in the US program), with carbon capture and storage big in Australia and Canada. 

Perhaps most important in view of these programs’ raison d’être, the empirical evidence presented shows that the green patent fast track programs reduce the time from filing to grant by several years compared to ordinary examination.  The time to grant has been cut between 42% and 75% across the programs, with the best improvement delivered by the UK program.

As to the applicants, the report found that most are small entities:

We found that fast-track users differ statistically from non-users in that they tend to have smaller revenues and smaller but faster-growing assets.  In other words, the fast-tracking programme seems to appeal particularly to start-up companies in the green technology sector that are currently raising capital but still generating small revenue.

Two intriguing issues explored by the study are the value of the patents applicants elected to accelerate in the programs and the knowledge diffusion effect of the fast tracked patents.  Using several common patent value metrics, the study found that fast tracked patents were of significantly higher value than green patents issued after ordinary examination:

Overall, our results consistently show that fast-track patents are of higher value than equivalent patents going through the normal procedure.

The study used forward citations to measure diffusion of the technical knowledge in fast tracked patents compared to non-fast tracked patents and found that accelerated patents exhibit a higher citation rate, indicating greater knowledge diffusion:

Compared with patents filed in the same month, of similar value but not fast-tracked, fast-track patents received twice as many citations in the same time period.  The estimated impact of fast-tracking on forward citations ranges between 50% and 150%, depending on whether citations made by examiners are included or not.  Thus, there appears to be strong evidence that green patent fast-tracking programmes accelerate the diffusion of knowledge in green technologies in the short run – i.e., during the first years following the publication of the patents.

You can get more information and download the report here.

This country has started to pay a lot of attention to solar, wind, and clean coal technologies.  But why does nuclear get shunned from the spotlight?

The United States gets 20 percent of its energy from nuclear power, third behind coal and natural gas. How many ads have you seen for “clean coal” or natural gas in the last year? But when was the last time anyone saw an ad on television for recycling nuclear fuel?

The most basic of environmental actions is recycling, but unlike other countries, we do not recycle our fuel rods. Instead of recycling the fuel rods, new material is mined, enriched, and used as fuel.

With a limited supply of natural resources, and the consumption of resources to store the used fuel, we need make this source of power more environmentally friendly. One of the most basic paths to reducing environmental impact is recycling.

I.  Why Recycle?

Nuclear reactors use only five percent of the fissionable material in a fuel rod. However, instead of putting that 95 percent to use generating power, the United States puts it in temporary storage. As of 2011, 65,000 metric tons of nuclear fuel rods are being stored in the U.S., almost all at the individual reactor sites.

If the technology exists and is safely being used by our international friends, and the U.S. thinks of itself as a world leader, why are we not recycling? It is estimated that if we recycled the fuel rods that are currently seen as waste, we would have enough energy to power the entire country for more than 12 years. That is a lot of fossil–free energy

Nuclear power is in use in over 30 countries. The technology to recycle nuclear fuel exists, and in use in six countries today – but not in the country that essentially started the nuclear field. France gets 78 percent of their power from nuclear energy. They recycle their fuel, are not in the news for nuclear incidents or security issues.

In the United Kingdom, it is a similar story. They get 19 percent of their power from nuclear energy and they recycle.

2.  The Opposition

Unfortunately, the nuclear industry suffers from a stigma in this country. Part of this stigma goes back to the fact that nuclear power was introduced to this country as a weapon – something to be feared. In many ways that fear persists today, and has hampered our implementation of newer technologies. Technology born in this country, and improved upon and implemented in other countries, should come home.

At one point, not recycling was a political decision. In 1976, the Federal government banned nuclear recycling. At that time, there was a national security concern involving nuclear energy. Considering the time – the cold war – it is understandable. The laws have since changed, but not the mindset. The country – the world – is going green, and it is time for our nuclear energy program to get with the times.

There are two major points of opposition to recycling spent fuel. The first is cost, and the second is security – specifically proliferation of plutonium. While both are legitimate concerns, their magnitude is not as significant as they claim to be.

There are some that argue that the cost of recycling nuclear fuel is too high. Then again, there are people that say the cost of alternative energy is too high. Yet, as a society, we have decided that the benefits of alternative energy outweigh the upfront costs of design and implementation, as well as the increased cost of the power.

But the government needs to help. Recently, the United States government spent $1.5 billion to support renewable energy, but spent over twice as much to support fossil fuels. If the government continues to favor fossil fuels, going green will be even harder.

The cost of designing, licensing, constructing/modifying, and operating a facility to recycle nuclear fuel rods is high. However, just like alternative energy, it is done for the greater good – to help the environment. Just like recycling of other products, there is less mining, transportation, and waste.

By lowering the amount of mining and waste, there is a benefit to society and the environment. That benefit is hard to put into dollars, yet we seen past that issue for solar and wind energy.

III.  The Technology

As with most things, there is more than one approach to nuclear recycling. One approach is to recycle the current stockpile of spent fuel. This is referred to as reprocessing, and is currently being done outside the U.S. using the PUREX process.

The second approach is a closed cycle reactor system. A closed cycle design incorporates recycling into the process so that the fuel is regenerated. This is a called a “breeder” reactor for its ability to create its own fuel.

A.  Reprocessing

The technology to reprocess spent nuclear fuel has been around for over 65 years. In 1960, the Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor of the U.S. Department of Energy) was granted U.S. Patent No. 2,924,506 (‘506 Patent) from an application filed in 1947.

The ’506 Patent is for an extraction process using a solvent–based solution to separate plutonium from an aqueous solution. In essence, the process separates usable materials from transuranic waste and other elements generated during nuclear fission so the usable materials can be reprocessed into new fuel rods.

Despite the fact that commercial reprocessing is not done in the United States, the DOE is funding work on technology related to reprocessing nuclear fuel. This work is typically done at the national laboratories, specifically Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Lab, and Argonne National Laboratory. 

The ’506 Patent is just one of the 151 patents DOE has been granted since 1956 involving nuclear fuel reprocessing, for technologies range from the processes and chemical solutions, to the containers for the fuel rods.

The ‘506 patent is cited as prior art for three patents, two of which are important technological offshoots. In 1976, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was granted U.S. Patent No. 3,959,435 (‘435 Patent). This patent uses a nitric acid solution to reduce the mount of tributyl phosphate used in the PUREX process.

In 1984, Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH in Germany was granted U.S. Patent No. 4,442,071 (‘071 Patent). This innovation changes the PUREX process to utilize sulfuric acid. While these two variants of the PUREX process are not compatible, both have provided a basis for a significant number of future patents.

Battelle LLC, with DOE provided funding, recently filed U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0250108. This patent application claims the invention improves the reprocessing of fuel used in light water reactors by reducing the number of steps, making the process safer, and reducing cost.

There are modifications to the PUREX process designed for specific purposes. TRUEX is a modified PUREX process that removes transuranics (TRU) during reprocessing. This process was created in the U.S., and two of the patents came out of Argonne National Laboratory (U.S. Patent Nos. 4,548,790 and 4,574,072).

DIAMEX (DIAMideEXtraction) process uses different chemicals to avoid the creation of gases that could lead to acid rain. The DIAMEX process is a French innovation, and patented in the U.S. under U.S. Patent Nos. 4,572,802 and 4,938,871.

There is also SANEX (Selective ActiNide Extraction) (see, e.g., U.S. Patent Nos. 4,461,747, 4,867,951, and 5,256,383), which allows the separation of actinides and lanthanides in the PUREX process. There are no less than five other modified methods currently in use or under development.

Additional work is focused on the non–proliferation issue. To that end, modifications to the PUREX process are being tested that would prevent pure plutonium from being separated during reprocessing. One of these is called UREX (URranium EXtraction). UREX is designed to prevent plutonium from being extracted during reprocessing, and reduce the amount of waste requiring long–term storage.

Because some of these modifications only target one aspect of the PUREX process, they can be used together. For example, the UREX+ and UREX–1a processes each use four of the modifications, but the combinations are different.

U.S. Patent No. 7,854,907 is focused on targeting the separation of technetium during fuel reprocessing was granted in 2010. This process claims to be applicable to UREX and UREX+ reprocessing methods. Operators are able to adjust the PUREX process by combining the different modifications in order to achieve change the elements or combination of elements at the end of the process.

One of the most recent technological developments to the PUREX process comes from France. The process, named COEX™, was granted U.S. Patent No. 7,887,767 in the U.S. in 2011. This modification of the PUREX process keeps the plutonium with uranium together during the reprocessing, but allows uranium to be separated out. This addresses the non–proliferation concern. It also reduces the number of steps involved in reprocessing.

B.  Fast Reactors and Breeder Reactors

Fast reactors are a different type of nuclear reactor. Unlike most commercial reactors, a fast reactor does not slow fission neutrons. As a result, these neutrons cause more fission as they collide with fissile nuclei. The concept for fact reactors was patented in 1965 by U.S. Patent No. 3,212,982.

Breeder reactors are a type of fast reactor that can produce more fission material than they consume. Beloyarsk 3 in Russia is a BN–600 reactor, and is currently the only commercial fast reactor (but has not been used to breed fuel). These reactors used a liquid metal, liquid sodium, something that was covered by U.S. Patent No. 3,498,880 by the French Atomic Energy Commission in 1966.

When the reactor is set to match burning and production, it becomes a self-contained power generator. That means that over the operational life of the reactor, no new fuel need be brought in, and no waste would be removed from the site.

In the early 1980’s, Argonne West reconfigured the Experimental Breeder Reactor–II (EBR–II), and tested what is known as an Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). The IFR program combined different technologies, such as electrorefining, metallic fuel, a passive cooling system, and a sodium cooled reactor, to achieve the goal of eliminating the two biggest concerns regarding nuclear energy, proliferation of weapons grade materials and nuclear meltdown.

One of the technologies came from General Electric, which worked on the reactor design and obtained U.S. Patent No. 4,508,677 describing a small, modular reactor design.[1]

Safety is always a concern when it comes to nuclear power. As seen in Japan, loss of cooling to reactors is a major problem. The designers of IFR knew this, and set out to remedy the issue – and they did. The IFR passively shuts down when cooling is compromised.

The IFR was designed to solve the two major concerns of nuclear power, but the design is also important to recycling efforts. The IFR can use spent nuclear waste for fuel. Just as the IFR consumes transuranics in its own fuel, it can start the reaction process using transuranic elements in spent fuel from our current reactors. This provides an additional method of recycling the spent nuclear fuel we have now.

This also means that weapons grade material, such as plutonium from dismantled weapons, can be processed with other fuels in the reactor making them unusable for military applications. Because the IFR can be consumed, breed, or match burning and production, the reactor can be used for different purposes.

As a consumer, IFR can use the current spent fuel and military waste for fuel. There would be waste generated, but not like the spent fuel we have now. In order to prevent the proliferation of nuclear material, the IFR was designed to commingle elements, not separate or purify. The waste generated from an IFR reactor can be separated so that the actual “waste” volume is reduce, as well as the time need for safe storage.

The technology used to separate the plutonium with uranium from the waste is electrorefining. The process described in U.S. Patent No. 5,336,450 (’450 Patent) was designed to work with the IFR reactor.

One of the significant advancements over previous electrorefining methods, such as the “Process to Separate Transuranic Elements from Nuclear Waste” described in U.S. Patent No. 4,814,046, is that the ‘450 Patent process is a semi–continuous process as opposed to a batch process.

C.  The Future of IFR and Fast Reactors

General Electric is in the process of developing a reactor named PRISM (Power Reactor Innovative Small Module). The design underwent a pre–application review in the early 1990’s, and benefited the IFR program. PRISM is a sodium cooled, metal fuel design reactor very similar to IFR. This is because General Electric worked on the reactor design of the IFR project.

Also, the fuel for PRISM was tested as part of the IFR program. One of differences is that IFR uses a metal alloy fuel, and PRISM can use ceramic or metal fuel. In an effort to commercialize PRISM, GE’s small modular approach is designed to be scaled up by adding additional units, as described in U.S. Patent No. 6,185,269, and on GE’s website.

Fast breeder reactors, specifically the IFR, are not being commercially utilized in the United States, though interest, as well as research and advancements related to the technology continue.

Earlier this year, Sandia National Laboratory released a report considering licensing of sodium fast reactors, such as IFR. The report concluded there were two challenges regarding resurrecting the IFR project. The first is recovering the historical data from the project. The second is integrating the technological advancements to the components of the system.

One of the improved pieces is the electrorefiner used to separate uranium and other transuranic elements, specifically plutonium, from spent fuel. Argonne National Laboratory has continued to work on this technology since, and was granted U.S. Patent No. 8,097,142 in January 2012 for their most recent innovation. This technology continues to be important because non–proliferation is still a concern with reprocessing of spent fuel.

IV.  Conclusion

These technologies are moving forward, but our domestic implementation is lacking. Nuclear energy can be greener, and the technology exists to make it happen. Implementing these types of technologies will significantly reduce the amount of nuclear waste generated and stored.

Additionally, these technologies will minimize the environmental impact of the energy we consume by reducing mining, and the amount of carbon dioxide generated by fossil fuels. The merits of the technologies created and tested in the United States have been proven, and PUREX is in commercial use. The United States should tackle the challenge today instead of passing the burden to future generations. 

It is time to reduce our environmental impact, update our nuclear technology, and recycle our nuclear fuel.

*Michael Morphew is in his second year at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego.  He received his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Washington in Seattle.

This is the first of three posts highlighting work by students who took my seminar class - Green Technology, Climate Change, and Intellectual Property Law –  this semester at Thomas Jefferson School of Law.  – Ed.

In November 2001, Doha hosted trade talks over intellectual property and public health. The discussions resulted in the landmark Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health.

The Doha Declaration recognised “that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public health” – particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics.

More than a decade on, in December 2012, Doha hosted the international climate talks for parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol 1997.

There was, once again, a contentious debate over intellectual property – this time in relation to clean technologies. The Climate Action Network argued that there should be a Declaration on Intellectual Property and Climate Change to facilitate the “rapid and efficient uptake of technologies to address mitigation and adaptation”.

Disappointingly, the 2012 Doha Climate talks resulted in no declaration or agreement on intellectual property and clean technologies. Indeed, the discussions on intellectual property were deadlocked. There was instead a cluster of decisions known as the Doha Climate Gateway.

While such decisions did not address intellectual property or open innovation, the Doha Climate Gateway selected the United Nations Environment Programme to host the UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre.

Intellectual Property and Clean Technologies

In the debate over the Doha climate talks, there was division over whether there should be text in respect of intellectual property and clean technologies.

China said, “We’re not going to request technology transfer free of charge. We certainly respect intellectual property rights.”

South Africa argued the talks should address “questions of equitable access to sustainable development, intellectual property rights and unilateral trade measures.”

The Philippines requested that the Technology Executive Committee consider issues “related to intellectual property rights as they arise in the development and transfer of technologies.” The country was particularly concerned about the need to address climate emergencies.

The Progressive Latin Americans – such as Venezuela – mooted text on a wide range of co-operative measures on intellectual property and climate change.

A Green Intellectual Property Exchange?

There was also significant discussion of co-operative models for facilitating open access to clean technologies.

In their book MacroWikinomics, Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams have called for the establishment of a green technology commons, sharing humanity’s knowledge of sustainable technologies.

The Creative Commons – celebrating its 10th birthday – has established the GreenXChange.

The Climate Action Network has proposed building on such a model, and establishing an intellectual property exchange to “enable secure, efficient and transparent arms-length transactions for intellectual property licensing”.

India put forward compromise text on intellectual property and climate change. India’s lead negotiator, Mira Mehrishi, called for a fund to enable access to clean technologies with intellectual property rights. Mehrishi commented: “If we don’t get cheap technology we will never be able to adapt to climate change.”

However, developed countries rebuffed such compromises.

Intellectual Property, Piracy, and Climate Change

As noted by attendee Michael Mazengarb, developed countries said there should be strong enforcement of intellectual property to encourage investment in clean technologies.

The United States and the European Union insisted that the Doha Climate Gateway should be silent on intellectual property. Other developed countries argued that other forums – such as the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization – would be better placed to address intellectual property and climate change.

It is striking that, while intellectual property was a taboo subject in the Doha climate talks, the United States simultaneously pressed for an expansionist chapter on intellectual property in the Auckland talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Indeed, the Edison Electric Institute – which represented United States energy companies in climate discussions – promoted the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership as a preferable model where “global innovation is maximized” and “intellectual property rights are adequately protected”.

The Climate Technology Centre

The Copenhagen Accord 2009, the Cancun Decisions 2010, and the Durban Platform 2011 established the foundations of a technology mechanism – a UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre and Network.

In the lead-up to the Doha negotiations, the Technology Executive Committee asked for greater clarity about the Climate Technology Centre’s role in matters of intellectual property.

The topic was discussed during the climate talks in Durban. Draft text on December 7, 2012 alluded to intellectual property, suggesting the Technology Executive Committee should be “examining effective mechanisms that promote access to affordable environmentally sound technologies, reward innovators and increase the dynamic of global innovation.” However, even such euphemistic language was erased in the end.

One of the key positive decisions of the Doha climate talks was the selection of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to host the UNFCCC Climate Technology Centre for an initial term of five years.

UNEP had put together a collaborative bid. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) will be a co-manager. The partners of the consortium included research and scientific organisations in Thailand, India, Argentina, Costa Rica, Kenya, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United States.

India will play a key role. The United States partner is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – an innovator on a wide range of clean technologies.

The UNEP emphasized in its bid: “We will be driven by country needs, recognizing as well that weak institutions are often a barrier to the transfer of technologies and that developing the capabilities of developing countries is critical.”

The Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, was optimistic:

The world has the money and technology to stay below two degrees. After Doha, it is a matter of scale, speed, determination and sticking to the timetable.

*Dr. Matthew Rimmer is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on Intellectual Property and Climate Change.  He is an associate professor at the ANU College of Law, an associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA), and a director of the Australian Digital Alliance.

This post is adapted from an article previously published on The Conversation and re-published here with the kind permission of Matthew Rimmer.

Part II:  Eilat, Israel

In my previous post, I discussed my observations regarding a current and future ‎Cleantech giant – China. As I noted in that post, I also spoke recently at an Israeli ‎Global Cleantech conference, held in Eilat in late November.

Israel has long been an ‎innovation leader in the Cleantech space, a phenomenon driven by the country’s ‎security needs and dearth of natural resources, coupled with a highly educated ‎workforce and established culture of technology innovation.

Interestingly, one of the ‎leading drivers of Cleantech innovation is the Israeli military, which is investing heavily ‎in developing renewable energy sources for its purposes. Of course, many of the ‎military-developed technologies can be easily adapted for civilian use. One example ‎is a portable water purification kit, originally developed for ‎military applications, but also useful for civilian hikers and campers. ‎

A major takeaway from the conference is that the Israeli focus on Cleantech innovation ‎is not wavering in the least. Conference attendees spanned the entire spectrum of ‎Cleantech technology areas, from solar to biofuels to wind.

Because of the start-up ‎nature of many of the Israeli companies in attendance, there was an unsurprising ‎focus on the financing of Cleantech innovation, whether via venture capital or through ‎strategic partnerships with larger corporations.

The importance of a robust patent ‎portfolio as an attractant for that investment was well-understood by the companies ‎exhibiting at the conference, irrespective of whether they were competing in a mature ‎market like solar, or looking to advance a disruptive technology in a less-crowded ‎Cleantech field.  Target markets for Israeli Cleantech products and services include the ‎USA, EU, China, Korea, and India amongst others.

In addition to the awareness of ‎intellectual property as a competitive mechanism, there was also a serious focus at the ‎conference on the importance of quality standards for implementation of Cleantech ‎products in the marketplace. One example discussed was a new Israeli electrical ‎standard applicable to electrical switchboards.‎

In many ways the conference reflected a mature Cleantech focus within the Israeli ‎business, government, and academic communities. While there was a definite ‎expressed interest in uncovering the next big thing in Cleantech, there was also a ‎decided interest in allocating money and brainpower towards tackling present and ‎solvable issues with existing technology.

Interestingly, there was a sizable Chinese ‎presence at the conference, and a spirit of potential future cooperation was in the air, ‎with China supplying the manufacturing capability and Israel the innovation.

And ‎while Israel rightly has earned its place as a net contributor of many promising new ‎Cleantech innovations, it was interesting to see how focused the domestic participants ‎were with also making sure that Israel keeps pace with the world in deploying existing ‎renewable energy technologies – to serve its own energy needs.

Whether that juggling ‎act is successful remains to be seen, but it was heartening to see and experience the ‎vast potential that a country classified as part of the developing world has to help ‎ensure a sustainable future for us all.‎

Gaston Kroub is a partner in the New York office of Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP.  Gaston serves as the co-chair of the Greentech Committee of the NYSBA’s IP Section and has been accredited as a LEED Green Associate.  Gaston is a registered patent attorney whose practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and counseling.