In our first Industry Focus column, RenewalsDesk looks at the thriving green technology industry and how a gold-rush on renewable energy patents could help, or hinder the future of the industry…
New research by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) shows that since the turn of the millennium there has been a surge in the number of global patents being applied for worldwide within the green technology field.
Applications for patents related to solar PV energy, for example, were well under 1,000 in the 1990’s but have been growing for the last ten years. In 2011 alone there were almost 10,000 international patent applications related to the sector.
The study also looks at the number of patent applications filed in the areas of biofuel, solar thermal energy and wind energy.
Across the board there was a 24% uplift in the number of patents filed in these areas between 2006 and 2011.
The 2014 Clean Energy Trends report estimated the current size of the sustainable technology industry to be $248bn, projecting it to grow to almost $400bn by 2023.
Unsurprisingly most of the patents filed across the four areas in question came from either China or the Republic of Korea and in the solar PV market all of the top 20 technology owners are based in Asia.
“The rate at which technology is researched and patented is a big indicator of the kinds of markets which will develop over the course of the next century,” said Katherine Hedley, GM at RenewalsDesk. “That can also be seen in the number of educational and research institutes creating patents in renewable energy.”
The study says that over 50% of the top 20 global technology owners were connected to universities or research institutes.
David King, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University said that he was not surprised by the uplift in renewable energy patents:
“Human ingenuity is the answer,” he said. “We created the science and engineering… revolution on which all our wellbeing is based. That same keen intelligence can point to the solutions to the hangover challenges and this requires nothing less than another renaissance.”