Oil Companies Patent Trolling Biofuel Production

Whatsmynickname writes "Thought oil companies were done patent trolling to try to shut down any efforts to wean us off of crude oil (e.g. Chevron and NiMH batteries)? Think again. BP and DuPont (Butamax) have taken an advanced biofuel company to court over infringement of newly awarded patents for developing biobutanol. When an oil company advertises it is looking for alternative fuels, it's not necessarily because they want to be socially responsible..."

Comments

Summary is misleading

[Attila Dimedici]

So, Dupont and BP have a joint venture that is developing biofuels. Said joint venture has patented a method of producing butanol using fermentation. This jont venture is suing another company for using a technique similar to the one they patented. How is this trying to "shut down efforts to wean us off of crude oil"? This looks like an attempt to profit from weaning us off of crude oil. There is certainly an argument to be made that the fact that the current patent system allows them to do this is contrary to the public interest. This is not Ford buying up the Los Angeles public transport company in order to shut it down and increase the demand for cars.

Re:Summary is misleading

[catchblue22]

This is not Ford buying up the Los Angeles public transport company in order to shut it down and increase the demand for cars.

What the "greed is good" crowd seem to be missing here is that these energy companies are big. Really really big. And as a sector, the oil energy sector dwarfs all other economic sectors. If large players in that sector start to amass patents on technologies that could displace their core business, then will become increasingly able to stifle competition in this field. In other words, they will be increasingly able to decide to sit on those patents if it serves their immediate economic self interest. And the forces that are supposed to guarantee that the self interest of companies overlaps with the common interest of society, namely competitive forces, are made irrelevant by the huge size of these companies. They will become increasingly able to squash/buy-out smaller entrants to the market who might displace them. This is made even worse by the fact that many of these private interests seem to have captured the regulatory and governing systems, the very systems that are suppose to guarantee that the private activity of corporations overlaps with the public interest.

So please don't cry that the poor companies are only doing what they are supposed to do, namely making money, because you are sidestepping the arguments made by many of us who are skeptical of the overlap of the activities of companies like BP and the public interest. You statements sound less like arguments and more like advertising slogans.

Re:This is silly.

[Gaygirlie]

Wha ??? Did you think anyone is going to spend millions to billions doing the research for a pat on the head and a thanks well done ?

Even if they couldn't patent it they could still produce the biofuel and continue profiting from it. Hell, if they were doing the research they'd be the experts in the area and thus could sell services to other companies. And if they were the experts in the area that'd also mean they'd most likely still be the first one to start actually monetizing their research.

You know, they didn't patent regular gasoline either and well, it DOES indeed look like they've been profiting from it for years even without patents so even that angle is well covered.

So yeah.. sorry for tearing your argument to shreds.