Slashdot Mirror
US Patent Office Fast Tracks Green Patents
eldavojohn writes "A new initiative is being piloted where 'green' patents are given special priority over other patents in the backlogged system. David Kappos (Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO) said, 'Every day an important green tech innovation is hindered from coming to market is another day we harm our planet and another day lost in creating green businesses and green jobs. Applications in this pilot program will see a significant savings in pendency, which will help bring green innovations to market more quickly.' The details of how you qualify for a green patent (PDF) are available with patent blogs offering opinions on this initiative."
Seems a trifle off. Something about "equal protection under the law" and not having the institution too subject to the whims of the ruling party and the lobbyists of the week.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
-- you know, the ones where you can say "a method for conveying stateful customer information ON THE INTERNET -- then pretty much all I'll need to contribute to the progress of the useful arts and sciences and, more to the point, amass a formidable patent portfolio, is add USING SOLAR POWER.
I've already applied for the business method patent, but reasonable licensing is available!
Tweet, tweet.
Guess it's time to update the old resume.
sorting out truly green patent applications from ones that have green-washed the terminology. I suspect it will do more to promote the, already abused, usage of the term green than actual environmentally friendly initiatives. Still, promoting less wasteful technology is by no means a bad thing, whatever the motive. Even if the initiative fails to promote green inventions (not that I'm saying it will, just that it will be ambiguous to determine), the ideal of efficiency and conservation will be promoted in the public eye.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
In a related story, a team of scientists from New Zealand claim to have found a cure to HIV, but that it has been backlogged in the US patent system for years.
In an interview, the lead scientist said "We were waiting for our patent to go through, and we just got this notice 'Your Patent has been moved back in the queue to make room for "greener" energy patents. We hope you understand, as we take part in saving the world'. I thought it was a joke at first, but the 1-800 number at the bottom was for the US patent office".
Yes, the HIV patent, a wonder-drug that could potentially save millions of lives and end suffering all over the world, especially in poorer third world countries, was backlogged to make room for new patents. Some of the recent "green" patents to come out of the US Patent Office was a "Perpetual Energy Machine, 100% Guarantee!!" and a new type of drinking straw that requires 2% less plastic during the manufacturing process than existing models.
The US patent office has refused to comment on this particular incident, but they did say "We're Always doing our part to save the world, one invention at a time! (tm)".
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
"Every day an important green tech innovation is hindered from coming to market is another day we harm our planet and another day lost in creating green businesses and green jobs. Applications in this pilot program will see a significant savings in pendency, which will help bring green innovations to market more quickly."
I'd consider myself a reasonably strong environmentalist, but cannot for the life of me comprehend that quote. Aren't products released to market all the time with a "Patent Pending" status? Wouldn't environmentalism benefit from weaker patents surrounding green tech?
The same logic has been applied to drug patents, which only last 7-12 years in the US, purportedly to widen availability of generic drugs, as well as to keep the industry on its toes. (As the law of unintended consequences goes, this makes non-generics outlandishly expensive, and makes pharma a very high-risk industry, given the incredibly high R&D costs of developing/testing new drugs)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
An apparatus for the sequestration of carbon dioxide in liquids, such as well water or tap water, removing harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and allowing the possibility of selling the liquid with the carbon dioxide therein as healthy and refreshing drink to Europeans and East-Coast Yuppies.
Looking around my hotel room here, there's no less than:
Green shampoo and conditioner
Green shampoo bottles (made from corn!)
Green soap (no soap in the middle of the bar - less waste!)
Green soap box (it's brown! it must be good for the enviroment!)
Save the environment sign with a panda bear, telling me to reuse my towels. (If you don't, the panda will eat you?)
Another sign explaining just how green the green soap is (and the green soap is actually branded "Green Natura"), including the use of soy products for the ink.
Green facial soap.
Sign telling me not to smoke unless I can breathe backwards.
Sign by my bed, telling me I need to place it on the bed if I want my sheets changed.
My fucking lord - you want MORE green products? Where will they go?
Patents "Green One-Click Checkout"
More suggestions:
*fastrack patents that "help the poor"
*fastrack patents that will "create jobs"
This is just to broaden options for repaying campaign contributions.
As a fellow "greenie" I agree, the statement is full of political buzzwords "green business", "green jobs", "significant savings", "green inovations", "to market more quickly".
He is simply trying to justify his departments existence with an obvious lie, either that or he has no idea what his department actually does.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This is yet another example. When businesses decide things, they make choices to maximize financial gain. When governments decide things, they make choices to maximize political gain. Therefore, anyone who trusts the government to act in their interests had better be damn certain they never lose an election or fall out of political favor. If you're not directly in power, you're just "the little people" and that power will be wielded against you. You'd best hope those are limited powers.
BTW, this story is essentially an admission by the Patent Office that they're corrupt. It's just that their mission has been corrupted by an ideology rather than any sort of direct monetary payments. Maybe next week the Patent Office will start putting Mormons or their personal friends or people who donated money to John McCain ahead of everyone else.
This is good we've only got about half the arable land in the US being used for 'green' bio-fuels so that food prices go even higher, with luck all of Haiti and south america will starve this time, we only managed to kill about half of them earlier this year. Go Green!
Hire more examiners and make sure a good part of them have degrees.
How do we pay them?
How about a royalty tax? ...and that includes on the ridiculous settlements exacted by patent trolls.
Troll:
Would you grant them for some dough?
Would you grant them for some blow?
Would you grant them for B-Ho?
Will you grant them, yes or no?
Locke:
Yes, we will grant green tech to trolls!
They'll make us look good for the polls!
Green-tech: the next big stock-market bubble. Just remember to bail out when the feeding frenzy starts to feed on itself.
...there should be compulsory licensing for all the green patents. In other words, you have to license the technology. To make that practical, I'd also stipulate that you have to license it at a reasonable rate and I'd base that on a fixed percentage of the sales price of the items made by the licensees.
This would also lay to rest all the "big oil companies bought the patent on the green tech so they could suppress it" conspiracies.
Actually, I think there should be compulsory licensing on ALL patents (ie, no suppressive patents), but we have to start someplace, and if this turns out to be more trouble than it's worth for some reason, it's good to start with just a subset of patents so it's easier to step back.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'm going to patent the patenting of green patents. That way, while everyone is pursuing the effort to GO green, I'll be EARNING green!
Oh good, now I can get my patent on "process for deploying biological devices to convert CO2 into oxygen and sugar using various enzymes in combination with solar power." I call this invention "plants."
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Patents are stifling battery technology. Further in the case of environmental and health concerns, there should be no patents at all. Additionally, greater minds than mine, such as Benjamin Franklin, a pioneer in the nascent field of electricity and electrical technology suggested that patents IN GENERAL were immoral, selfish, and that innovation should be contributed "For the Greater Good".
But whatever, let's rush the patents on stuff that we need for the planet faster, so that these greedy corporations can charge you more sooner!
It's asinine. We need patent and copyright reform ASAP. I suggest a 10 year limit on any technology or piece of art. If you can't contribute something useful again once a decade, or save your earnings from that decade and live off of that, TOO FUCKING BAD, FUCK YOU!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
You stole my idea for a "green" suppository!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Yes, its great news. Now, we have a great way of stopping some of these idiotic ideas in their tracks, which is what patents usually do, or stopping them once they have got going, which is almost as good. But it comes too late for many ideas, which are already in the public domain.
For example, we can no longer patent the idea of killing huge numbers of birds by erecting vast quantities of whirling mobile metal machines on migration routes, on the pretext of generating electricity. The thing I truly wish we could have patented is the idea of allying with industry to develop wild areas while erecting these things, but calling the result conservation. Where was the USPO when we really needed it?
We can no longer patent the idea adjusting the surface station record to show unprecedented warming regardless of what it actually shows. We cannot either patent the famous method of 'hiding the decline' in the proxy record.
We cannot patent the idea of pretending that the Arctic is going to melt and flood the planet sometime very soon, thus raising vast amounts of grant money to do studies to find out how soon.
More serious, we cannot patent the idea of seeding the upper atmosphere with sulfur, and so there is every chance that fools will actually try and produce a new ice age by doing it.
So its a great idea and a most innovative step by the USPO, but they should have done this 20 years ago, and we could have either become enormously rich, or spared the world the greatest mass hysteria since.... Well, certainly since the millenial frenzy around the year 1,000, but maybe one has to go back even earlier.
Still, look on the positive side. If we are a little creative and surreptitiously join some green circles, there is no shortage of truly insane public policy ideas being floated. The best may have gone, but never underestimate the capability of the environmental movement to come up with more. It may be too late for society, but there is probably still time to get very rich if we get busy patenting now.
Unfortunately, this is not just theoretical. It is the what happens time and time again. Often, the obvious aspects of some technology get patented early which makes it uneconomic to do the necessary optimization of the process for a decade or more.
are green with envy. Do they qualify?
First we had 'just think of the children' to justify the bonehead policy of the day. Now we also have
'just think of the planet'.
Sigh.......
the Patent Office is laying the ground now to keep our future lawyers employed. This fast tracking is going to open the doors to a lot of lawsuits. It is not like the PO has a stellar track record anyway when it comes to granting patents.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Hopefully this will apply for those with an actual product and not some half-cocked theory without any real testing to back it up.
Wishing in one hand, the other hand is beneath my asshole.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I'm skeptical. Big coal and oil companies are already patenting the hell out of every possible green tech, without any plans to actually implement this. Fast-tracking patents is likely to hinder innovative green startups, which cannot afford to patent everything, nor lawyers to hold off the bad guys. Rather depressing. Please tell me I'm wrong.
assignment != equality != identity
Considering that the whole "green" movement, like a watermelon is green on the outside and RED on the inside, I think it will be good for the rest of us if it has to choke on silly patents.
Since the bureaucracy is pushing fast approval of "green" patents, expect the USPTO, in order to make quota, start rubberstamping applications of extremely obvious and silly patents, such as "method of conserving electricity by actuating switch" (ie: turn off the lights).
About the only people who benefit from "fast tracked" patents are patent troll companies and lawyers in Texas.
Of course, the only person who seems to have benefitted from the "green" movement is it's high priest, Algore himself, who has become filthy rich off the trading of fradulent "carbon offsets", rich enough to live in a mansion that uses 20 times the electricity of an average American, to own a fleet of SUV's and limos, and to fly only on private jets.
When the doomsayers start practicing in their own lives what they wish to impose on the rest of us, I might start taking them seriously.
Corporatism != Free Market
"Every day an important tech innovation is hindered from coming to market is another day we harm our planet and another day lost in creating businesses and jobs. Applications in this pilot program will see a significant savings in pendency, which will help bring innovations to market more quickly."
Does this mean it will only take 1 year for the patent to go through?
There's cyanide in your boogers. That's right. When you're ill and your bogies are greenies, that green is because of cyanide your body produces to kill off infected cells.
Cyanide is a toxic substance.
BAN NOSES!!!!
It seems that we are being led to believe that "Carbon Emissions" are the cause for all the world's woes. (It snowed because of Global Warming!?) So I have come up with the perfect idea to patent:
We line up every person who talks about the Polar Bears, "Think Green", those assholes who put the Green "think before you print this" tag at the bottom of their emails, all PeTA members wearing leather shoes, and Al Gore, and them take away their air supply. Yeah, that's right... no more air means no more breathing, means no more carbon emissions from them. Once the idea is patented, I'll make money every time a tree-hugger stops breathing!
That should buy me a few more years of driving my SUV and get the cash to afford to drive it!
than a bunch of patents.
Hmmm.... will 'green' patents include GM patents? I smell the involvement of Monsanto et al.
Green technology patent trolls incoming in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1
---dragoness
For protection, the only important timing is that a patent is applied for 1 year before making a technology publicly known or available. Having the patent office give preferential treatment to on category only slows down the other categories. It doesn't affect the timing of getting products to market. Sounds good politically though, I guess.