Green Patent Blog®

I’ve realized that limiting my posts to subjects for which there is publicly available intellectual property to discuss sometimes causes me to pass on reporting important technology. 

Thus, a new series - “Unpublished, Unpatented, but not Unimportant” - in which I will periodically report on clean technology developments for which I can’t locate a published patent application (in the U.S., patent applications are published 18 months after they are filed) or an issued patent. 

C12 Energy (C12) is a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup that recently secured a $4.5 million round of funding led by Sequoia Capital.  C12 has not made its plans public, but an article by the company’s president and chief scientist published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology is fueling speculation about a grand plan for carbon capture and sequestration.

Kurt Zenz House’s article, entitled “Electrochemical Acceleration of Chemical Weathering as an Energetically Feasible Approach to Mitigating Anthropogenic Climate Change,” describes a process of capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by enhancing the solubility of carbon dioxide in the ocean.

House’s approach involves boosting the alkalinity of the ocean by electrochemically removing its hydrochloric acid and neutralizing the acid through reactions with silicate minerals.  The increase in alkalinity enhances the ocean’s ability to take up atmospheric CO2.  

Carbon dioxide will then dissolve into the ocean and be stored as bicarbonate ion “without further acidifying the ocean.”  According to the article, over time the carbon will be permanently stored in the ocean:

On timescales of hundreds of years or longer, some of the additional alkalinity will likely lead to precipitation or enhanced preservation of CaCO3, resulting in the permanent storage of the associated carbon, and the return of an equal amount of carbon to the atmosphere.

The article explains that the method is “equivalent to the electrochemical acceleration of the Earth’s natural chemical weathering process.” 

I spoke to Dr. House today and asked him if he has filed a patent application on the process.  He told me that C12 is in stealth mode and he couldn’t comment on the company’s IP strategy.  Given the article’s internet publication date of November 7, 2007, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a patent application publish some time between now and early May.

Dr. House has a Ph.D. in Geoscience from Harvard University (see his homepage here).

Ecolite Concrete (Ecolite) is a San Diego company that provides sustainable construction materials using proprietary modeling software and a patent-pending system for making pre-fabricated concrete (read the Sustainable Industries article here)

The manufacturing process starts with project plans developed by the company’s EcoCAD modeling and engineering software, which produces a shop drawing of each wall panel.  Ecolite has filed an application to register the ECOCAD service mark for “computer-aided engineering services for others” (77194288_app.pdf).

The wall panel info is sent to roll-forming machines, where the shop drawing is translated into appropriately sized and marked steel framing members.  The steel members are snapped into place and fastened together into assembled frames forming the composite panels.

These panels are covered by U.S. Patent Application Pub. No. 2007/0062151, entitled “Composite building panel and method of making composite building panel.” 

Concrete (12) is then poured into the composite panel (10), which includes the frame (14) and has a front face (16) and a rear face (18).  The panel also has a high performance steel lath (not shown) attached to the assembled frames to provide additional strength.  The concrete is then smoothed and cured, and the panels are kept in a storage facility or shipped to the construction site.

The Sustainable Industries piece says that Ecolite’s automated steel system is the first of its kind in the U.S.

It also provides benefits for green builders.  According to the company’s website, Ecolite’s concrete mix is made of about 25% recycled content and Ecolite walls can assist builders in achieving LEED green building ratings for their projects by providing credits in several LEED categories. 

In a previous post, I wrote about the trademark troubles of Suntech Power Holdings (”Suntech”), a Chinese solar photovolatic (PV) module provider, who has been fighting an infringing thorn in its side on three continents. 

Suntech owns U.S. Trademark Registration No. 3,111,705 (suntechreg.pdf) (”‘705 registration”) for its SUNTECH design mark (pictured above) for:

Solar batteries; electric accumulators for vehicles; accumulator boxes; battery boxes; plates for batteries; batteries for lighting; batteries; battery chargers; galvanic batteries; electric batteries

Suntech also has common law rights to the word mark SUNTECH in connection with solar PV modules and building integrated PV and has an application pending in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for the mark (suntechapp.pdf).  

Hong Kong based Shenzhen Xintian Solar Technology Co. and its subsidiary Sun Tech Solar (collectively “Sun Tech Solar”), have been using the trademarks SUN TECH and SUN TECH SOLAR in connection witht the sale of solar modules similar to Suntech’s products and operating a web site at the address www.solarsuntech.com.   

Last month Suntech announced that it had been granted a preliminary injunction (PI) in Germany.   The PI prohibits Sun Tech Solar and its distributors from selling “Suntech” brand solar products (see the earth2tech story here). 

The news release says there have been only ”isolated cases” of imitation products sold and suggests that knockoffs can be identified by closely comparing the logos and product names on the products sold with the genuine logos and names on the Suntech website.

Germany isn’t the only market where Suntech has enforced its trademark rights against fakes made by Sun Tech Solar.  As discussed previously in this space, Suntech sued its rival last year in San Diego for alleged infringement of the ‘705 registration and its unregistered SUNTECH word mark.

In that case, the court granted a preliminary injunction (suntech_pi_order.pdf) ordering Sun Tech Solar to cease all use of the SUN TECH and SUN TECH SOLAR marks as well as any other confusingly similar marks in connection with solar modules in the U.S.  The injunction order came about a week before Sun Tech Solar was to show its wares at the Solar Power International 2008 Trade Show in San Diego.

But the company thumbed its nose at the court and its rival by displaying the SUN TECH SOLAR mark on its signs and promotional material at the Trade Show anyway and refusing to cease the infringing activity even after being served with a copy of the preliminary injunction.  The court found Sun Tech Solar in civil contempt and ordered the seizure of the infringing materials (suntech_seizure_order.pdf).

That suit ultimately resulted in a default judgment and a permanent injunction against Sun Tech Solar (suntech_default_order.pdf) because of the company’s continuing infringement and refusal to even show up in court.  The default order stated:

The Defendant has made it clear that it does not intend to cease infringing Plaintiff’s trademarks and refuses to acknowledge this litigation.

Even if Sun Tech Solar had hired attorneys, they wouldn’t have had much to work with on the law or the equities considering the infringer’s outlaw behavior.