Clean Tech Intellectual Property: Eco-marks, Green Patents, and Green Innovation is now available for purchase through the Oxford University web site here and on Amazon.com .
The book discusses many of the stories and issues I’ve been covering in this space over the years and is the culmination of over two years of work, including about 18 months of intensive research and writing.
I presented the subject matter in four sections. “Counseling Clean Tech” illustrates how clean tech companies can obtain and leverage green patents to create and expand their businesses. This section includes strategies and case studies relating to drafting and prosecuting green patent applications, building green patent portfolios, and licensing clean technologies.
The second section, “Clean Tech in Court,” provides detailed accounts of the major green patent litigation stories of the past two decades and examines their effects on the clean tech industry.
Section three covers “Green Branding, Greenwashing, and Eco-mark Enforcement,” including green trademark prosecution and litigation as well as green branding issues from both the brand owner perspective and a consumer protection standpoint.
The book closes with a section on “Green Patent Policies, Initiatives, and Debates,” which includes a detailed review of clean tech IP policies and a critical examination of the international debate in the climate change treaty negotiations over the role of IP in efforts to curb global warming.
In an introductory chapter entitled “Clean Tech IP is for Real” I highlight the unique aspects of this field and try to make the case that green IP is a discrete area of law and policy worthy of study, practice, and expertise.
I am particularly grateful to the people who were kind enough to read the completed manuscript, and I am humbled by their positive reaction to it.
Eric Raciti, Partner and Chair of the Alternative Energy Practice at the Finnegan Henderson law firm, said the book is “a thematically integrated treatise on clean tech IP” and Carl Horton, Chief IP Counsel at GE, called it the “new green tech IP bible.”
I hope Clean Tech Intellectual Property will impart some useful information and insights about clean tech IP and serve as a valuable resource for those interested in this emerging field.
