Managing Technology Convergence and Protecting Innovation: IP for Cleantech Ventures—Biomass and Be

Biomass Magazine September 2009
By Joseph Teja Jr. and Michael J. Pomianek

Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to protecting biomass/cleantech intellectual property, there are some general attributes of many cleantech efforts that should be considered when assessing possible strategies.

While intellectual property (IP) is always an important component to the success of any technology-based company, arguably it is especially important for “cleantech” ventures directed to energy and/or environmentally-related technologies. Cleantech is a broad field with several narrow subsectors—the technologies embraced range from older technologies already in the public domain and now being recycled, to cutting-edge research coming out of academic and industry labs. Some of the innovations involve fundamental technology breakthroughs that may warrant broad protection. In other cases, however, an incremental and seemingly narrow improvement in an already crowded area of development may provide an important enabling solution having significant commercial value.

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