Finding ICT-based patents for Climate Change Mitigation Technologies Markus Konrad, European Patent Office (EPO)

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1 Finding ICT-based patents for Climate Change Mitigation Technologies Markus Konrad, (EPO) Markus Konrad Directorate 1853, Cluster ICT

2 Climate Change Mitigation Technologies (CCMTs) and patenting literature Since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, there has been a notable surge in R&D in the field of CCMTs. As a result, there has also been a significant increase in patenting in related fields too. The compound average growth rate for CCMT inventions was 8.6% between Of the nearly 100 million patent documents in the EPO s databases, more than 2 million relate to CCMTs Professionals and institutions outside the patent system are strongly interested in patents relevant for CCMTs 2

3 Climate Change Mitigation Technologies (CCMTs) and patenting literature Strong concentration in the EU, Japan and the USA Share of the top three decreased in favour of a more diverse range of inventor countries, notably from Asia, with an increasing role played by Korea and China, but also from other regions. 4

4 Integration of ICT into renewable energy technologies ICT is going to play a key role in facilitating the deployment of all flexibility options for renewable power technologies Positive growth rates for ICT patents related to renewable energy indicates an increasing effort to address system integration issues for renewables through ICT 5

5 What kind of information do patent documents contain? Title of the invention, name of the inventor Detailed description of the invention: how it is constructed, how it is used, benefits compared with what already exists Claims providing a precise definition of what the patent protects Drawings Abstracts: summary of the invention particularly useful for search engines 6

6 The public can use patent documents to find out what technology already exists and build on it keep track of what other inventors and companies are doing avoid infringing other people's patent rights check out where an invention is patented, and where it is not 7

7 All patent documents are accessible free of charge on epo.org Espacenet over 100 million patent documents, easily searchable Patent Translate Automatic translation between English and 31 other languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. 8

8 EPO Patent Classification Scheme - CPC 9

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10 How to find CCMT-related patents? The EPO has developed a dedicated classification scheme (Y02) enabling users to find CCMT technologies in its databases. The Y02 scheme was devised in close co-operation with expert partners in the field, using technological guidelines produced by the United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Each time a document relating to a sustainable technology is added to its databases, the EPO assigns it a Y02 and/or a Y04 ( smart grids ) symbol. Y02 classification is a tagging scheme which enables documents relating to sustainable technologies to be retrieved quickly and accurately, across classification categories. 11

11 EPO Patent Classification Scheme - CPC 12

12 Structure of the Y02 classification 13

13 Searching for ICT-based patents related to CCMTs in Espacenet - Demo Searching in Y02 groups has been possible since 2010 Search of patents via EPO s free Espacenet service Espacenet works with the same databases as used by EPO examiners 15

14 Searching for ICT-based patents related to CCMTs in Espacenet - Demo Espacenet over 100 million patent documents, easily searchable Patent Translate Automatic translation between English and 31 other languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. 16

15 ICT-based inventions related to CCMTs 17

16 ICT-based inventions related to CCMTs Smart grids 18

17 Further reading Patents and clean energy E-course on the Y02 Classification scheme Searching patent documents (Espacenet crash course) A new EPO classification scheme for climate change mitigation technologies, World Patent Information 34(2), June 2012, , V. Veefkind, J. Hurtado-Albir, S. Angelucci, K. Karachalios, N. Thumm, 22

18 Thank you!