American firms can lose big if U.S. inventors don't file on foreign patent rights
August 9, 2002 -- U.S. companies that could benefit from new designs for integrated coal gasification combined cycle power systems stand to lose to foreign companies if inventors are not able to file on foreign patent rights.
Inventors have to file for global patent rights to their designs to prevent non-U.S. companies from running with their ideas. But in many cases, inventors cannot secure this protection without financial backing from a U.S. company.
This is the case for mechanical engineer and inventor Lloyd Weaver, who said he will not have the funds to seek global patenting of his U.S. patent pending PCPG (pulverized coal pressurized gasifier) invention, which could be important to future low-cost, high efficiency (50%+) IGCC (integrated coal gasification combined cycle) power systems.
"I have sought U.S. EC and utility involvement for some time to make PCPG gasification based IGCC the common reality that I believe it can become, but to no avail. Time is quickly running out on the foreign filing cutoff date and for U.S. EC or utility involvement in developing and controlling PCPG," Weaver said.
Weaver hopes his new gasifier design will positively impact U.S. engineering and contracting companies and equipment makers that choose to invest in it. The air blown pressurized gasifier uses pulverized coal and thus is intended to be simpler and potentially more reliable and efficient than many gasifiers proposed and/or in operation today.
Ignoring foreign filings of potentially important American inventions could cause U.S. companies to lose nearly all the PCPG related IGCC work. Typically, the U.S. exports engineering and intellectual property expertise, but eliminating foreign patent rights from U.S. control up front could also hurt engineering companies' ability to get related contracts overseas.
"This is one of the ironic twists of globalization; if you don't control the intellectual property, something we have always assumed we would do, we lose both our market and theirs," Weaver commented. "This is a whole lot of business that U.S. EC's and equipment manufacturers sacrifice by not being aggressive in following up on top-level U.S. ideas that pass by them.
"This can hurt us economically, especially in new mechanical technology areas like IGCC, where there is no market leader and where the 20 year markets to upgrade coal power technology are large, in the hundreds of billions."
Because of the large build-up in natural gas based power systems, warnings of shortfalls in natural gas supplies and transmission are now common, and engineers are designing near-shore (to avoid the NIMBY factor) LNG (liquid natural gas) importing facilities to buttress natural gas supplies.
"When people said there were ample gas supplies for power plants, did everyone realize this also meant importing it as LNG? Expect to see significantly higher oil and natural gas prices when this happens," stated Weaver. "We have made the wrong energy investments again; oil and gas are not the bridge fuels to the solar age, but clean-coal technology is.
Whether the system is air- or O2-blown, clean-coal gasification systems also produce hydrogen. When scientists learn how to separate it from the mixture of gases, it should be a marketable commodity.
After natural gas prices spiked in 2001 and contributed to the California electricity crisis which is still playing out, more attention has been given to other technologies that might still be less-polluting than traditional coal-fired generation.
President George W. Bush in his national energy policy charged the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the task of creating a government/industry partnership to study and implement clean coal technology. Proposals to participate in the Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) were due in March, and DOE is currently considering them.
To check the progress of this initiative, visit the CCPI web site at netl.doe.gov.
For information on PCPG, contact Lloyd Weaver at lloyd@suscom-maine.net.
For more information on clean coal technology, visit the Department of Energy at lanl.gov.
Lloyd Weaver was one of the principals and founders of SeptiTech Inc. (www.septitech.com), a company specializing in developing and manufacturing new wastewater treatment technologies. He recently resigned as VP Research at SeptiTech to devote full time to advancing his clean-coal gasification inventions. |
