The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has made it easier for green inventors to protect their intellectual property. On Friday the government agency announced that it had changed the application process for its Green Technology Pilot program in a bid to boost the number of green technologies filing for IP protection.
The program was launched at the end of last year as part of the Obama administrations larger goal of having the U.S. lead the global green economy.
The Green Technology Pilot program initially set out to review up to 3,000 applications in its first year. So far though, the patent office has only received 950 requests for accelerated review, and only granted 342, reports Cnet News’s Martin LaMonica.
“This will permit more applications to qualify for the pilot program, thereby allowing more inventions related to green technologies to be advanced out of turn for examination and reviewed earlier,” David Kappos, director of the patent office, said in a filing in the Federal Register, as reported by LaMonica.
Renewable energy technologies eligible for the express review process have to support inventions relating to electricity generation from hydroelectric, solar, wind, renewable biomass, or landfill gas. The program also takes in applications supporting power transmission and distribution technologies.
Protecting one’s IP capital is a crucial step that can help greentech entrepreneurs find financing.
According to Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti’s Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) in 2009 the patent office granted 1,125 patents, the highest level since the CEPGI index was launched eight years ago — see chart here.