Oil Companies Patent Trolling Biofuel Production

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Oil Companies Patent Trolling Biofuel Production

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday February 19, 2011 @04:54AM from the if-that-doesn't-work-we'll-have-to-invade dept.

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..."

15 of 183 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

This is silly. by FooAtWFU · 2011-02-19 04:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Did you expect them to just donate the relevant patents for the betterment of humanity? I mean, in the nation's current intellectual property regime? You've got to be kidding.
Fight the disease, not the symptom.

--
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
1. Re:This is silly. by mysidia · 2011-02-19 05:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  They own the patents in the first place for the purpose of trolling.
  It's not a question of them donating them or not, they spent money buying up and getting patents to obstruct alternative energy in as many ways as possible, to protect their business of selling fossil fuels, which are more profitable for them to sell than to sell alternatives, let alone spending all that money actually developing any of the technologies they got the patents to.
2. Re:This is silly. by mysidia · 2011-02-19 05:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  OK then, let's revisit this conversation 5-10 years from now and see exactly how far Butamax has gone in delivering biobutanol to the public for consumption. Bet you it won't be any further than me driving an electric car with large scale NiMH batteries.
  No... because the patent trolls arrested development now.
  In 5 or 10 years, they will have the patents to a next critical step.... required to actually produce/use that Butamax.
  Alternative energy is dependant on more than just one specific technology.
  There are lots of technologies required to actually produce biofuels or to utilize them for the production of energy. And if you are artificially prevented by a patent from getting past any one critical step, the alternative technology won't be practical. There are and will be lots of places they can stop you from making/using Butamax.
  Due to the patents, there will be very few R&D attempts by others. Translation: less competition, less innovation, lower chance the technology develops, and with fewer people working on it -- it will be easy for the Oil companies to make sure they do any "development" / "invention" needed to get more patents FIRST. Their patent lasts 20 years from the date of issue (usually 5 or so years after the date of application), so for all intents and purposes, they have a lock on that one patented thing for 30 - 35 years.
  Oh right... each patent is just one small invention required to produce and use the biofuel.
  Plenty of time to figure out the 'next things' companies developing the technology need, and get patents for those before the patent they have expires.
  If they just make sure to get a new patent locking down a "next step" once every 10 years, then nobody will ever come up with the technology.
  That is, unless their competitor somehow works somehow in complete secret at a very fast pace, even somehow managing to avoid Oil company spies/corporate espionage, and then still comes out with completed technology and patents that.
  Still, it takes 5+ years or so for such R and D anyways
3. Re:This is silly. by Gaygirlie · 2011-02-19 05:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Did you expect them to just donate the relevant patents for the betterment of humanity? I mean, in the nation's current intellectual property regime? You've got to be kidding.
  Personally I think they shouldn't even be allowed to patent such things. As the matter stands, the current, modern society can't stand without a proper fuel-source, our nations and basic functionality depends on it. If we do not find a proper alternative to crude oil before we run out of reserves our society will collapse. Thus it kind of is a real necessity for us to come up with a good, generally-acceptable alternative fuel-source that can fulfill all the different kinds of purposes for which we use crude oil-fuels. Thus being able to patent important research in the area only serves to hinder our progress and endanger our future, only because of temporary monetary benefit for limited parties.
  
  Fight the disease, not the symptom.
  Sometimes you cannot avoid fighting the symptoms first or else you'll run out of time.
4. Re:This is silly. by Gaygirlie · 2011-02-19 06:17 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
5. Re:This is silly. by budgenator · 2011-02-19 06:29 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Butanol isn't a replacement for Ethanol, it's a replacement for gasoline!
  
  Butanol may be used as a fuel in an internal combustion engine. Because its longer hydrocarbon chain causes it to be fairly non-polar, it is more similar to gasoline than it is to ethanol. Butanol has been demonstrated to work in vehicles designed for use with gasoline without modification.[1] It can be produced from biomass (as "biobutanol")[2] as well as fossil fuels (as "petrobutanol"); but biobutanol and petrobutanol have the same chemical properties.
  Historically Butanol and acetone has been produced by fermentation of starches and sugars by Clostridium acetobutylicum what the Butamax patent claims is a method of spicing the genes from C. acetobutylicum that make butanol into other organisms. The patent is very specific about which gene sequences do what and are inserted into the host cell, rather than the typical overly broad patent from typical patent trolls.
  
  --
  Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
6. Re:This is silly. by Whatsmynickname · 2011-02-19 08:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Why is BP going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new butanol infrastructure when they have perfectly working oil refineries already making tons of cash? BP's stockholders would slap these executives upside the head and ask "WTF is wrong with you"... Heck if I owned BP stock, I would do that. Oil companies producing butanol would only make sense when crude was expensive enough and people quit buying straight gas. There's no reason for oil companies to develop alternative fuels until it is economically feasible to do so. Until then, it's better for them to just sit on the technology from a profit standpoint.
No kidding by Sycraft-fu · 2011-02-19 05:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

Every oil company I've seen seems to acknowledge oil is finite. Their estimates of when production will peak differ from environmentalists, but other than OPEC (who says it will never peak) they all seem to understand the concept.
So, that being the case, what do you think they are going to do? Just wait until oil becomes extremely expensive and difficult to get, humans transition to a new power source, and then go out of business because they have to product to sell? Or do you think maybe they'll look in to other energy sources they can sell, be it biofuels, thorium, solar, whatever.
Remember that companies aren't evil, they are just amoral. They don't really care one way or the other, they just want to make money. So no, oil companies aren't interested in the damage they cause, except to the extent the law requires them to be and to the extent the public cares. However that doesn't mean they just want to destroy the world to be evil. Likewise they'll happily sell a limited resource for tons of money today, but that doesn't mean they aren't thinking about what to sell tomorrow.
The higher the price of traditional fuels, the more interest there'll be in biofuels. After all if I invent a process that can deliver a BioOil(tm) at $150/barrel with the potential to scale to $100/barrel in 10 years there is no interest when oil was back down in the $30/barrel range. Now that it is up in the $80 range, it is maybe something to look at, though it is still cheaper just to extract oil. If it went up to $200/barrel, there'd be tons of interest as it'd be cheaper right now.
1. Re:No kidding by ScrewMaster · 2011-02-19 05:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  They don't really care one way or the other, they just want to make money.
  They apparently fund the bulk of photovoltaic research too, for that matter. They're like Microsoft or Google in a way ... they have a core competency, and will milk it to the very last drop. That doesn't mean they aren't casting about for something, anything, that can be used to maintain their hegemony when their current money maker is gone.
  
  --
  The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Summary is misleading by Attila+Dimedici · 2011-02-19 05:10 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

--
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
1. Re:Summary is misleading by catchblue22 · 2011-02-19 05:51 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  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.
  
  --
  This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Re:Submission is bigger troll than oil company by $RANDOMLUSER · 2011-02-19 05:29 · Score: 4, Informative

The one thing we know for certain is that the cost will not go down. When all the oil goes away, its replacement will cost more, and the oil companies want to be the ones collecting that money.

--
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I can already predict what BP will say in 2 years by Whatsmynickname · 2011-02-19 05:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

"We've looked into biobutanol, but it wasn't economically feasible to produce". Wanna bet? Know why? They are in the business of pumping oil from the ground and delivering it to your car. The infrastructure is already bought and paid for. All these alternative energy sources will NEVER be economically feasible to the big oil companies for this reason. That's precisely why you cannot leave ALL biofuel research to the oil companies.
Re:Biofuels are bad mmmkay by Candid88 · 2011-02-19 05:41 · Score: 4, Informative

I guess it's possible, but still, that's a million miles away from the plant based technologies "biofuels" of today and even theoretical algae biofuel technology is still likely to be less efficient land-wise than other solar powered derived electric vehicle techniques.
http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2008/06/algae-biodiesel-vs-solar-panels.html
Provides a comparison of required land use of algae biodiesel production to a PV solar-energy powered electric car. The PV -> electric car method requires around 1/5 the land use. The real efficiency killer is simply the internal combustion engine. Also, that's based on theoretical algae biodiesel production, commercial-scale production would probably be less efficient. Meanwhile, both solar-power and electric car technologies are getting more efficient all the time.
Yes by Dcnjoe60 · 2011-02-19 10:43 · Score: 3, Informative

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 ?
Yes, they will. The process that the patent covers is based on research from 1984 and includes work from Boston University and the University of Illinois. It was BP/Dupont who patented the process even though they didn't do the research. As it turns out, the original work was done by grad students (so they got to pay to do the research instead of being paid to do it).