December 21, 2023 IP Trends in Clean Tech Innovation

Patent applications in the clean tech sector are up as programs incentivize innovation.

By Ryan J. Schermerhorn

During the recent COP28 summit, the U.S. and the almost 200 other countries agreed to a historic pact that commits to transition “away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”  The pact also includes commitments to triple global renewable energy capacity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Many agree that significant innovation in cleantech is necessary for these commitments and other previously established climate change goals to be achievable. As a result, we have observed a significant increase in innovation directed to cleantech over the last few years and we expect this to continue.

The easiest way to quantify the growth in cleantech innovation is to analyze the number of patent applications filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which allows applicants to pursue international patent protection in approximately 150 countries, and other patent offices around the world. One challenge, however, is that patent applications are often not publicly available until 18 months after filing, such that many filed in 2022 and 2023 are not yet publicly available. Moreover, cleantech patent applications do not have an assigned classification at the USPTO, and often straddle cross several disciplines (electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and chemistry, for example), making data collection and analysis difficult.

In 2021, the last year for which comprehensive data is available, we know that the USPTO only received approximately 40,000 patent applications directed to cleantech technologies, which accounts for about 7% of total applications. By

The best way to collect data illustrative of the cleantech application growth is to look at related technology areas. According to research available from the WIPO and Mathys & Squire:

• Patent applications for renewable energy – which includes solar power, fuel cells, wind energy and geothermal technologies – increased by almost 30% during the 17-year span between 2002 and 2019.
• Patent applications for carbon capture and storage technologies – which reverse the negative effects of carbon emissions – are up 65% between 2020 and 2022.
• Patent applications for electric vehicles are up 59% between 2020 and 2022.

We have also observed increased patent application filings for energy storage technologies (most notably electric vehicle batteries), climate and environmentally friendly agriculture, resource management (e.g., water management), carbon reuse and recycling (e.g., infusing carbon into concrete), and green materials (e.g., bioplastics and biofibers). We also expect to see an increase in patent application filings directed to nuclear technologies, as U.S. states are increasingly open to new nuclear reactors to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

To encourage these trends, the USPTO in 2022 introduced a Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program, allowing patent applicants to expedite – free of charge – the examination of their U.S. patent applications so long as one or more claims of the application are directed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Due to the success of this program, the USPTO recently extended it for three more years until 2027 (and expanded the scope of subject matter of eligible applications, notably to include claims directed to emission prevention and monitoring techniques.

Innovators are encouraged to leverage the USPTO’s Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program when pursuing patent protection for technologies that arguably promote climate change in some capacity. This free program significantly expedites and lowers the cost of the patent application process. We recently utilized the Climate Change Mitigation Pilot Program to expedite the examination of a client’s patent application directed to energy reduction. The patent application was filed in May 2023, and within just two months, the USPTO examined the application and issued a positive response, advancing all of the claims to allowance. We expect that the U.S. patent will be issued later this month, just five months after filing (a process that traditionally takes two or three years).

Ryan J. Schermerhorn is a partner and registered patent attorney with the intellectual property law firm Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP.

DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this article is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice or a substitute for obtaining legal advice from an attorney. Views expressed are those of the author and are not to be attributed to Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP or any of its former, present or future clients.

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