How Many Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions?
Part 2 - Industry
We return to the last five years of environmentally or ecologically friendly patents.
The 234 environmentally and ecologically friendly patents are overwhelmingly found within the patentECO Industry Index. The patentECO Industry Index a broad range of inventions covering everything from green buildings and construction to clean technologies developed in healthcare, manufacturing, and products. Here is a summary of how the 234 environmentally or ecologically friendly patents breakdown:
Index
|
Number of Patents
|
%
|
Industry
|
185
|
79.1%
|
Energy
|
25
|
10.7%
|
Water
|
11
|
4.7%
|
Transportation
|
9
|
3.8%
|
Agriculture
|
4
|
1.7%
|
Six US Patent Classification system (USPC) classes comprise the top 25 percent of these patents, with another 12 classes making up the second quartile. The top six classes are:
OR Class
|
Number of Patents
|
Class Title
|
210
|
16
|
LIQUID PURIFICATION OR SEPARATION
|
428
|
11
|
STOCK MATERIAL OR MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES
|
427
|
9
|
COATING PROCESSES
|
524
|
9
|
SYNTHETIC RESINS OR NATURAL RUBBERS -- PART OF THE CLASS 520 SERIES
|
507
|
7
|
EARTH BORING, WELL TREATING, AND OIL FIELD CHEMISTRY
|
510
|
7
|
CLEANING COMPOSITIONS FOR SOLID SURFACES, AUXILIARY COMPOSITIONS THEREFOR, OR PROCESSES OF PREPARING THE COMPOSITIONS
|
Over the next few posts, we’ll look at a representative patent from each of the five Indexes, starting with Industry below.
Of the 185 Industry Index patents that were described as environmentally or ecologically friendly, 50 percent of them pertain to: materials; liquid, coatings, or chemical production/processes; or buildings.
Patent Number 7,556,862 is an example of one of the Industry patents issued in Class 428, which includes inventions related to stock material or miscellaneous articles. This patent, “Protein based wood finishes and methods for producing the same,” was issued on July 7, 2009 to Mingruo Guo (South Burlington, VT), Nareen Wright (Washington, DC), and Jiancai Li (South Burlington, VT). Their invention, assigned to the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College (Burlington, VT), provides environmentally friendly wood finishes that use reduced levels of solvents and provide a safe and protective coating for wood and wood products. The invention is classified within class 428 as 428/532, for a composite (nonstructural laminate) of carbohydrate. The basis for their wood finish is captured in claim 1:
“A wood finish solution comprising between 2.8% and 4.2% whey protein by weight, wherein the whey protein is denatured whey protein.”
Whey protein is derived from milk — their invention is a direct application and update of milk paint that was used on many Vermont barns for hundreds of years, and is still available as a commercial product.
