Oh patents! Green, what’s green?

Copyrights © Françoise Herrmann

Emeralds, duh!..

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All that is green, as in the green economy, green tech and green patents is connected to global warming, assumed to arise from the accumulation of greenhouse gasses (GHG) in the atmosphere. 

The accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere arises as a consequence of burning excessive amounts of fossil fuels (such as gas, coal and oil). Fossil fuels are also called “dirty” fuels in contrast to “clean” green fuels which do not produce emissions of gasses with a greenhouse effect. .

 

The quest for finding sustainable solutions to the problem of global warming and the consequences of climate change are part of a geo-engineering framework, and the IP solutions presented within this framework,  as inventions or patents, are all designed to address global warning in their own very different ways.

 

The WIPO green portal (World Intellectual Property Office, under the auspices of the United Nations) offers a green marketplace portal for the exchange of green technologies, knowhow and IP, with six particularly useful categories for the various areas of green activity. 

These six areas include:

1. Alternative energy production

2. Administrative, regulatory or design

3. Waste management

4. Transportation

5. Energy conservation

6. Agriculture and forestry

 

It is well worth exploring each of these categories to critically discover and understand the implications of some of the types of inventions connected to global warming, and invoked in each of these areas of activity. Emissions trading, for example, is part of the second above listed categories, namely --administrative, regulatory or design activity invoked in the efforts to curb global warming.

 

Succinctly, lets see how green is green in some of these categories --not necessarily in the exact same order.

 

Caution...there are also unintended consequences… 

The Irish are going to have several field days... ..! 

 No duh!