While Thanksgiving this year was a holiday for most of us, filled with visiting relatives, turkey, and football, the US PTO quietly published a bumper crop of nanotech 977 patent applications on Thanksgiving Day – 62 to be precise! Some of my “favorites” include those with applications in cleantech and bionanotech. In addition, the intersection of polymer science and nanotechnology is clearly evident and commercially significant in the nanotech patent literature. Polymeric nanoparticles are an important type of nanoparticle, supplementing inorganic nanoparticle systems like quantum dots.
Continue reading this entry
Tag Archives: Solar
New Web Page at DOE; Activity with Solar and Powder Atomization Technologies
Posted in Cleantech; Licensing; PatentThe DOE is staying active this summer (despite Washington budget quagmires) and now provides us with an upgraded web page. Several highlights today include:
1) Major loan guarantee for solar ($967 M) !
2) Updates on the SunShot solar program: $50 M is provided.
3) Updates on the "America’s Next Top Energy Innovator" challenge: Ames Laboratory and Iowa Powder Atomization Technologies (IPAT) are the subject of the new reduced fee, streamlined licensing program.
The above is just a sample.
Nanotech Commercialization in the News Again, This Time Quantum Dots
Posted in PatentThe Economist featured quantum dot commercialization in displays as its lead science and technology article in its June 18, 2011 issue (pages 85-86). For example, Nanosys is reported to be working on quantum dots applications for LCD displays. OLED display technology is discussed, including quantum dots potential role in OLED. Finally, quantum dot application in solar is also noted. Additional companies noted include Samsung Electronics, QD Vision, and Nanoco.
The article concluded:
"Quantum dots, then, look as if they have a bright future. Much hype has surrounded the idea of nanotechnology – the thought that manipulating objects on the scales of a billionth of a metre will produce useful products. So far, the results have been less than spectacular. Dots, though, may prove an exception."
I would phrase it quite differently. Nanotechnology is central to much of innovation in the "real world" including advances in energy and medicine (contrasting real world with innovation genre such as social media, software, and the internet). Innovation in this "real world" takes time to turn into useful products, in some cases decades of time. Many barriers to commercialization have been identified including length of time between research and commercialization, the valley of death, the need for expensive infrastructure, lack of experience with large scale production at universities and start-ups, etc. Energy and financing should focus on solving such problems, not on hyped expectations devoid of realistic timing.
This week, another 87 nanotech class 977 patent applications quietly published at the US PTO from applicants around the world working in diverse application spaces. Contained therein will be commercialization jewels quite possible very free from hype and improving our energy and medicine situations.
Nanoscale Thermoelectrics for Solar Power – Shining in the Media Mainstream
Posted in CleantechGood news it was to see nanotech featured in The Economist, May 14-20, 2011 issue, pages 100-101. The story featured work from MIT (Gang Chen) and Boston College (Zhifeng Ren) which was recently published in Nature Materials. The gist is that a new type of solar cell is proposed, wherein nanoparticles of bismuth telluride are used to create a new type of solar cell based on the unheralded thermoelectric effect. According to the reporters, a key aspect of the technology is the nanoscale. The small size provides good electrical conduction but poor thermal conduction "through imperfectly understood quantum-mechanical processes." Initial solar efficiencies are sufficiently high to attract commercial interest, per the article.
Thermolectric effects are increasingly found in nanotechnology patent filings. For example, in this year alone (not yet half way finished), ten 977 patent applications have published which mention "thermoelectric" in the abstract. This may not seem a lot, but it represent almost 1% of the 977 patent publications for this year to date (10/1149). Prior years show far lower rates of filings (e.g., 2010 was only 6 publications at 0.22 %; 2009 was only 7 at 0.47%). One of them for 2011 is US Patent Publication 2011/0108778 which includes Chen and Ren and, according to public PTO records, is assigned to both MIT and Boston College.
GMZ Energy is a company co-founded by Chen and Ren to commercialize thermoelectric materials and, according to news reports, recently received multi-million dollar venture funding. The Economist article, however, did not mention GMZ Energy.
Nanotech’s Signature Initiatives: Solar, Nanomanufacturing, and Nanoelectronics are Good but where is Nano Biotechnology?
Posted in GeneralThe NNI’s draft strategic plan is available now at www.nano.gov. One of the most interesting aspects of the report (about 40 pages) is the set of three "signature initiatives" near the end, which include:
(1) Nanotechnology for Solar Energy Collection and Conversion
(2) Sustainable Nanomanufacturing – Creating the Industries of the Future
(3) Nanoelectronics for 2020 and Beyond
Cleantech’s Prizes, Heroes, and Now Solar-Powered Airplanes
Posted in CleantechThe news today was good for cleantech: in Switzerland, a solar powered plane heroically piloted by André Borschberg and powered by 12,000 solar cells was flown for more than 24 hours! Borschberg’s team apparently is pushing solar powered airflight as part of a larger push for renewable energy, but not as a short term solution to energy problems.
This startling cleantech good news connected nicely…
2010: Investment and Licensing Opportunities May Arise in New Areas – Cleantech Energy Patent Landscape Report
Posted in LicensingThe 2010 Cleantech Energy Patent Landscape Report Executive Summary recently released by Foley & Lardner LLP highlights key findings from a review of nearly 825 granted U.S. patents specific to clean energy production, efficiency, and conservation technologies within 11 focal categories:
- Solar
.bmp)
- Wind
- Hydro
- Geothermal
- Biomass
- Nuclear
- Hybrid vehicles
- Fuel cells for vehicles
- Utility metering
- Smart grid technologies
- CO2 storage or sequestration
To aid industry executives, start-ups, individual inventors, and investors in identifying and leveraging market opportunities in this continually changing landscape, this annual analysis offers insight on regional cleantech activity, the specific technologies for which patent protection is being granted and who is obtaining these patents, focal points for venture capital investments, areas of patentable white space, and potential licensing availability for corporate entities.
For a copy of our full Cleantech Energy Patent Landscape Report, please contact John Lazarus at jlazarus@foley.com.
Smart Grid
Posted in CleantechWith a growing number of ways to harvest electrical energy from cleaner sources, which can highly depend on the geographical locations, we now face the problem of how to distribute these different types of energies while minimizing waste. In other words, when our southwest neighbors have excess electricity generated from wind or solar power, it would be a waste not to transmit the excess to another region that could use that power. Hence the term "smart grid."
The development of smart grids has faced several challenges, but many research teams have attempted to overcome these challenges. A recent article in The Technology Review provides a report on some recent development at this front.
Solar Energy Leads the Way in the Granted U.S. Patents in 2008
Posted in Cleantech; Patent- By John Lazarus
Among the 589 U.S. patents issued in 2008 across nine categories in Foley’s Cleantech Patent Landscape Report, the category that produced the most patents was solar energy with 156 patents.