UK IPO puts fast track patents on display
Patents for environmentally-friendly technology that have been accelerated through the UK’s Intellectual Property Office’s (IPO) Green Channel are now featured in an online database.
Each green patent on the database has been through the procedure, which the IPO estimates takes nine months from application to grant. It is hoped that the database will encourage further green patent applications.
Richard Taylor, a partner at DLA Piper UK LLP, believes the IPO has set a “relatively low bar” for applications that can be put through the procedure.
He said: “It’s going to be pretty obvious that some are going to be green patents if they relate to solar or turbine technology. But the fact is that this could be massively broad because it’s going to cover almost any invention where you get greater output for less input.”
A patent application for a Torque control system, requested for examination in March, might be a good example.
“Green patents are effectively jumping the queue,” he said. “So there is the potential for dissatisfaction among people who find themselves queue-jumped by inventions that are only green tangentially.”
An aim of the database is to encourage the economy to derive greater benefit from IP, so the IPO may wish to avoid discouraging applications if it can, said Taylor.
Baroness Wilcox, intellectual property minister for the UK, wants innovation and invention to develop as a national industry.
She said: “This new database will provide businesses with easy access to green ideas and inventions.”
The new UK government has been seen to focus on IP through a series of cost-saving measures. The new database is a good advert for the fast-track procedure implemented by the previous government.
Taylor said: “It’s a very useful hook on which to hang publicity, and to spread the word about the availability of patents for green technology and that money can be made out of developing green technology. The generation of publicity is where this is a useful initiative.”
Recently, the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP), a government-funded organisation that provided external oversight to IP research work, and input to strategic IP policy, was dissolved. Part of the board’s remit will be passed to the IPO.
