GREEN TECH
MONITORING GREEN TECHNOLOGIES IN PATENT AND SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE
Green technology patents provide new monitoring challenges to those in the industry. Ian Pearce explains.
In recent years the potential environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution, as well as the need to reduce reliance on traditional fossil fuels, have led to an increasing global awareness of the advantages of moving to ‘cleaner’ or more renewable energy sources.
the technology of interest may not be well covered by this ‘best fit’ indexing term, especially as patents by their very nature oſten push the boundaries of scientific knowledge.
Tis was frequently the case with emerging technologies in the clean energy area, where searches
art search, for example, all publicly available information should be considered. Te challenge in this scenario is where to start when you need to consider ‘everything’. One suggested route is to use a specialised database which focuses on the relevant technology area, such as ProQuest Environment Abstracts. Tis database provides access to key energy journals and hard-to-find conference papers and proceedings, as well as special reports from international agencies and corporations.
Te article to the leſt, for example, retrieved from ProQuest Environment Abstracts following publication in January 2012 in the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, describes a ‘novel hybrid solar panel’ arrangement.
Lateral search links from relevant or interesting subject indexing terms, as well as the option to quickly retrieve ‘Similar Documents’ available on the ProQuest platform, facilitate the easy expansion of the search into potentially related articles which may initially have been overlooked. n
Advances in technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels also mean that it is now possible for individual households, as well as large industries, to contribute to this effort. In the UK, overall decreases in the cost of solar panels, for example, have recently led the UK government to propose reductions in subsidies for households installing solar energy.
But what is the best way to monitor technologies related to ‘clean energy’ in both the patent and scientific literature?
A patent search for monitoring a technology of interest will typically comprise a search for a combination of key words or concepts, for known assignees or inventors, and an exploration of citations as well as various patent classification schemes such as the International Patent Classification (IPC) and the European Classification (ECLA). Te challenge for any patent searcher is oſten determining the appropriate indexing term to use and even then
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using existing IPC and ECLA codes were potentially leading to incomplete retrieval. Tis led the European Patent Office to introduce a complementary Y02 patent classification scheme specifically to cover the area of clean energy.
To date, the Y02 classification scheme covers two main areas:
• Y02C: The capture, storage, sequestration or disposal of greenhouse gases; and
• Y02E: The reduction of greenhouse gases emission, related to energy generation, transmission or distribution.
Various narrower terms are available within both Y02C and Y02E, such as Y02E10/50 for photovoltaic energy and Y02E10/70 for wind energy.
Of course, patent searches should not necessarily be restricted to the patent literature. For a prior-
Ian Pearce began his career with Derwent Information and spent 12 years within the Tomson Corporation (now Tomson Reuters) in various roles. In 2006, he joined Dialog where he maintains responsibility for providing expert knowledge on Dialog® and ProQuest Dialog™ content, platforms and applications. He holds a BSc Honours degree in Chemistry with German.
World Intellectual Property Review March/April 2012 39
Ian Pearce is a training and information consultant at Dialog. He can be contacted at:
ian.pearce@
dialog.com
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