Slashdot Mirror
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..."
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.
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.
"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.
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
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.
Butanol isn't a replacement for Ethanol, it's a replacement for gasoline!
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