Green Patent Blog®

There has a been a lot of activity in wave power recently, with the world’s first commercial tidal energy turbine installation completed in Northern Ireland last week, another project being developed in the Ontario River near Cornwall, Canada, and possible expansion of a small installation in New York City.  The technology for the Ireland project was developed by British firm Marine Current Turbines, and the NYC and Canada installations were designed by Verdant Power, a New York-based company (read the Matter Network stories on Ireland here and Canada here).

Water turbines operate in much the same way as wind turbines, but the greater density of water presents somewhat different technological challenges.  The increased density of water means that water turbine blades can function with smaller wingspans than air turbines.  However, the effects of drag and wake formation are greater in water and can cause a large thrust force on the turbine blades, interfering with the flow through the turbine rotor.  In addition, the flow rate varies significantly with the depth of the water.

Some of Marine Current Turbines’ patents seek to address these problems with their turbine installation designs.  U.S. Patent No. 7,331,762 is directed to a turbine support structure having the turbine rotors situated between two parallel decks.  The upper and lower deck each have a different streamlined cross-section, with one being more convex than the other.  This design accelerates the flow of water over the more convex surface to eliminate the difference in flow rates between the upper and lower water streams, thereby reducing interference with the rotor.  

U.S. Patent No.7,307,356 (’356 patent) covers a bifurcated column design having a vertical gap designed to support twin turbine blades.  The two blades spin in opposite directions to operate in bi-directional water flows (i.e., both ebb and flood tides).  This setup also is beneficial because the two rotors offset each other’s torque.  A horizontal turbine support structure extends perpendicular to the column with a portion extending through the vertical gap.  This design minimizes water drag and wake formation so the bi-directional water flow doesn’t interfere with the rotor.  The technology deployed in Northern Ireland, Marine Current Turbines’ SeaGen, appears to be an embodiment of the ‘356 patent. 

Verdant Power’s patent application Pub. No. 2007/0063520 is directed to a system for generating power from slow moving water flows for use in non-tidal flowing water such as man-made canals or aqueducts.  The system consists of a water flow flume with a network of slopes and curves, including an acceleration zone to increase flow velocity and create kinetic energy from water movement. 

Looks like this is just the beginning for commercial tidal power installations and for Marine Current Turbines in particular, which has other projects slated for the next few years, including in Vancouver and Wales.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Toyota’s petition for certiorari, refusing to review a lower court’s ruling that the Prius, Lexus RX400h and Highlander SUV hybrid cars infringe a patent owned by hybrid technology company Paice LLC. (read my previous post on Toyota’s appeal)  Toyota had argued that Paice’s statements in its patent that prior technology had “substantial deficiencies” and was ”compex and difficult to manufacture” precluded infringement under the doctrine of equivalents because Toyota’s hybrid vehicles used an aspect of that prior technology.  But the appeals court ruled that language in a patent criticizing a prior invention had to be clear as to which aspect of the invention is being criticized for a court to deny that the patent scope covers the prior invention as an equivalent.   

So the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will stand.  In that decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed a $4.3 million jury verdict that Toyota’s hybrid drive trains infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,343,970 as an equivalent system but vacated the district court award of a $25 per vehicle ongoing royalty.  (read my previous post on the Federal Circuit decision) Now the case will go back to the trial court to determine the amount of ongoing royalty Toyota will have to pay Paice.

As is typical, the Supreme Court did not give a reason for its decision to deny review.  But the denial means that fewer than four justices favored review of the case (if four justices vote to review, the high court grants the petition for certiorari).  I remember one of my law professors used to describe his exams as consisting of big issues, little issues and non-issues and advised students to figure out which is which and not spend any time on the non-issues.  Here, Toyota tried to dress up a non-issue as a big issue, and the Supremes wisely declined to spend any time on it.

Australian solar cell company Dyesol has developed transparent dye-infused solar cells that can be sandwiched between two panes of glass to transform windows into energy collection devices.  In a process based on how plants generate energy, Dyesol’s cells use a dye analogous to chlorophyll to absorb light and generate electrical energy.  The cell consists of a nano-particulate porous film formed on a conductive substrate, a layer of dye, a transparent conductor and an electrolyte placed between the dye and the substrate.  The dye-coated nano-particles increase the surface area available for light absorption.  (read more about the technology on Ecogeek and Inhabitat)

Dyesol owns a patent application directed to its proprietary method of manufacturing the dye solar cells.  U.S. Application No. 2008/0105362, which published last week, claims a manufacturing method that comprises forming a nano-particulate layer on a conductive substrate, applying a dye to the nano-particulate layer and treating the nano-particulate layer with an electrolyte.

The resulting dye solar cells differ from traditional solar cells in how light is absorbed and how charge carriers are generated.  In ordinary photovoltaic cells, sunlight is absorbed by a semiconductor material such as silicon, which knocks electrons loose from their atoms, creating electricity.  Here, the dye chemically absorbs the sunlight and generates electrons to carry charge through the conductive substrate.  Thus, instead of photovoltaic or photoelectrical (light to electricity) cells, by virture of the added dye, these are photoelectrochemical cells.

Last month Silicon Valley electric sports car company Tesla Motors sued rival car maker Fisker Automotive for allegedly stealing Tesla’s trade secrets, including confidential design ideas for a hybrid electric sedan.  The lawsuit, filed in California state court in San Mateo County, also names as defendants Fisker Automotive’s CEO, Henrik Fisker, its COO, Bernhard Koehler, and Fisker and Koehler’s design company, Fisker Coachbuild.  (read the New York Times story here)

According to the complaint, Tesla hired Fisker Coachbuild to aid with Tesla’s “WhiteStar” project to design an electric-hybrid sports sedan.  Tesla alleges that the defendants used the trade secret and confidential information on high-performance electric-hybrid sports car technology acquired during the engagement to secretly design their own directly competing sedan, the Karma (shown above and in this Inhabitat.com piece), which Fisker recently launched.  Among other things, the complaint alleges that the defendants fraudulently concealed their intentions to make a competing vehicle, breached the parties’ service contract and violated California trade secrets law. 

Trade secrets differ from patents in that they only protect information that is kept secret and only can be enforced against those who gain access to the information by improper means, including by breaching a promise to keep the information confidential.  (see IP Watchdog’s summary of trade secrets here)

From perusing the complaint, it seems that interpretation of the contract could be a major issue in the case.  While the contract has a confidentiality clause and a provision guaranteeing that Tesla would own any resulting work product, it also states that Fisker Coachbuild was permitted to provide the same design services to other car makers while working for Tesla.  Fisker Coachbuild may argue that building a competing car for Fisker Automotive constituted providing vehicle design services to another automaker, which it had every right to do under the contract.  In the complaint, Tesla asserts that Fisker Coachbuild’s complete involvement in the design of the competing car went beyond the scope of merely providing design services. 

Of course, that defense would not win the day for Fisker Coachbuild if it did in fact disclose Tesla’s proprietary information to Fisker Automotive and used the hybrid technology to build the competing car.  So the case might ultimately come down to a comparison of Tesla’s and Fisker’s hybrid-electric technology, which would be fun for us patent and greentech observers. 

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