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"Shedding light on green patents: EPO and UKIPO launch clean tech patent databases." tweets the team at Think IP Strategy (formerly Duncan Bucknell Company) pointing to a blog post by Eric Lane at the Green Patent Blog covering intellectual property issues in clean technology.

As Eric Lane, a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego, where he is in the Intellectual Property and Climate Change & Clean Technologies practice groups, writes on his Green Patent Blog:

One hope with these initiatives is that they will facilitate transfer of green technologies, making it easier for green patent owners and prospective licensees to hook up.

Another is that the increased transparency regarding owners of green patents will aid negotiations in the international climate change treaty talks.

In any event, more green patent information can only help green tech innovators and implementers.

Readers of the Green Patent Blog might also be interested in searching some of the greentech topics in IP.com's Intellectual Property Library, such as:

• Reducing greenhouse gases
• How to turn wind into energy
• Innovations in fuel efficient cars

Speaking of fuel efficient cars, a recent post about the BLUECAR eco-mark on the Green Patent Blog asks, "Is Blue the new Green?"

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IP.com got a little note of thanks from the European Patent Office on Twitter @EPOorg yesterday.

Thanks wasn't expected, as we hadn't done anything big; just a small favor in sharing with our followers on Twitter, a #FollowFriday or #FF hashtag, recommending they follow the European Patent Office, which is officially @EPOorg on Twitter.

We're grateful that the EPO was thoughtful enough to favor IP.com with their public note of thanks on Twitter. That little social gesture by the folks at the EPO means a lot to us, and we appreciate it.

Some call it the favor economy, and it's evident elsewhere in social media, like @uspto on Twitter. Soon, we hope, the USPTO will be expressing appreciation for the very professional way that Patent Attorneys J. Matthew Buchanan Mandy Sinclair and Stephen Nipper have been maintaining in Trust for the USPTO the username @uspto on Twitter, with the hope and expectation that the United States Patent and Trademark Office will want to have an official interaction with its followers, as do many other government agencies on Twitter. Of all the questions concerning reform at the USPTO, "Why aren't we on Twitter?" isn't the most important, but it's easy to fix.

The USPTO has just announced that it's officially on Facebook where they posted this message from Director David Kappos:

Welcome to the USPTO’s page on Facebook! We're excited to be launching this forum to communicate with you and share the latest news from the USPTO. We know thousands of innovators, members of the intellectual property practice community, and USPTO employees are active on Facebook, so we’re pleased to be able to bring information and updates to you here. But this is also a place where you can tell us what YOU think. We encourage you to comment on our posts and tell us what you “like” and “dislike.” Check back here daily, as we will be providing regular updates including press releases and other news, details on upcoming events, speeches, updates from my blog, photos, video, fun facts and more. Just like checking your Facebook page, we hope visiting our page will become part of your daily routine.

You can also follow David Kappos' public blog Director's Forum on the USPTO website and post comments on his blog posts about the many changes and reforms at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Now that the USPTO is using social media to communicate effectively on the Director's public blog and on Facebook, hopefully it won't be long before the United States Patent and Trademark Office is officially @uspto on Twitter, as well.

Until then, thanks Matt, Steve, and Mandy for all you're doing, without expectations, because it's the right thing to do.

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On the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day (26 April), which focuses this year on ‘green innovation', the European Patent Office (EPO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) have announced their agreement to undertake a joint project to examine the role of patents in the development and transfer of environmentally sound technologies (EST), in particular in the field of energy generation.

This initiative, part of a wider effort to examine the link between patents and EST, will produce several studies and provide input into ongoing discussions on technology transfer in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Ideally, this should result in concrete recommendations for countries negotiating a post-2012 climate agreement at a December 2009 summit in Copenhagen (COP15), the follow-up to the 2007 Bali conference.

The joint project, launched this past week with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the three organisations, will deliver objective data and analysis on patent trends and their impact on access to EST.

"The IP system is essential for the development and effective dissemination of the new technologies that will be needed to address climate change," said EPO President Alison Brimelow. "We need to ensure that the IP system promotes, rather than hamstrings, the transfer of environmentally-friendly technology. We are looking at how the patent system should be designed to meet the needs of innovators in the field of eco-innovation," she added. "To this effect, our efforts to ensure patent quality will be of central importance."

"There is an urgent need for evidence based analysis to inform current discussions on the role of IPRs in the transfer of EST, bearing in mind the different perspectives on these issues," said ICTSD Chief Executive Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz. "We are confident that this joint project, drawing on the work and expertise of each organisation involved, will be a valuable input towards a better understanding of these issues with a view to contributing substantially to enhanced transfer and diffusion of EST, particularly to developing countries," he added.

Hussein Abaza, Chief of the UNEP Economics and Trade Branch, added that "the relationship between intellectual property rules and trade in climate-friendly technologies is currently a hotly debated topic within both trade and climate change communities. We need to ensure the best available information is provided to policymakers so their debate is well-informed and results in policies that support the development of, and trade in, climate-friendly technologies."

The project will run in several phases and rely on input from all relevant stakeholders, in particular industry and business associations that focus on environmentally sound technologies.

For more information, please contact:

Rainer Osterwalder
Director, Media Relations
EPO

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