Environmentally Friendly Transportation

How Many Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions?

Part 5 — Transportation

Transportation is a big arena for environmentally friendly innovations. Recreational eco-friendly vehicles from California; what’s not to like?

The nine Transportation Index patents are evenly spread over eight USPC classes:

• chairs and seats
• automatic temperature and humidity regulation
• railways: surface track
• prime-mover dynamo plants
• electric resistance heating devices
• marine propulsion
• buoys, rafts, and aquatic devices
• data processing: vehicles, navigation, and relative location.

We’ll consider “Clean energy powered surfboards,” an invention of Kendyl A. Roman of Sunnyvale, CA. The patent (8,070,544) was issued on December 6, 2011 and is classified as 441/74, which is a surfboard.

I believe you’ll see the novelty of the invention, and its environmental friendliness, by reading the abstract:

“Clean energy powered surfboard having various advantages that make for easy to learn, easy to use, safer, exciting, high performance, environmentally friendly surfing on any ocean wave in the world. The various embodiments include novel motor, turbine, or electric motor generator surfboards comprising hydrogen or electric-powered motors, which can be switch-activated and which drive jet pumps. Energy can be stored as compressed gas, including air and hydrogen. Energy can be stored in novel capacitors that are incorporated in the body of the surfboard. Energy can be generated by solar or water power while surfing or by passing waves, for example, while waiting for a big wave. An output jet provides thrust to catch a wave, to return to the wave breaks, or to avoid a hazard. A novel fin output jet increases stability and maximizes thrust. Self-contained, self-recharging embodiments are low cost, lightweight, safer, and good for the environment.”

Hang 10!

Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions Part 4

 Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions - Water

As we’ve seen in earlier posts over the past months, innovations related to water treatment, production, or conservation are an important feature of the patentECOsphere.

Of the 11 Water Index patents that explicitly purported to be environmentally friendly in our review period (2007-2011), nine are within Class 210, liquid purification or separation.

Patent No. 8,043,499, “Portable and autonomous desalination system,” invented by Farooq Saeed (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Ahmed Z. Al-Garni (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) was issued on October 25, 2011 and assigned to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia). Their invention is considered by the USPTO to be a structural installation of machinery within the broad class of liquid purification or separation inventions (210/171).

Although narrowly classified according to its original classification, it is actually a “portable and autonomous desalination system [using] an autonomous reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system utilizing power from a combination of electricity generation and storage sources that include a photovoltaic (PV) unit, a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) unit, and an electricity storage unit. Electric power from PV, VAWT or storage units or a combination of these units is provided, depending upon the availability of sunlight or wind, or for night operation for water desalination using the reverse-osmosis process. The unit is portable, environmentally friendly, self-sufficient and self-sustaining in terms of supplying the electricity and fresh drinking water needs of the typical household.”

Adaptations could perhaps be applied to disaster relief and recovery (the Fukushima and Indonesia tsunami, and Haitian earthquake come to mind), or applications to the oil and gas drilling industry.

patentECO Environmentally Friendly Water Inventions

How Many Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Water Inventions?

Part 4 — Water

As we’ve seen in earlier posts over the past months, innovations related to water treatment, production, or conservation are an important feature of the patentECOsphere.

Of the 11 Water Index patents that explicitly purported to be environmentally friendly in our review period (2007-2011), nine are within Class 210, liquid purification or separation.

Patent No. 8,043,499, “Portable and autonomous desalination system,” invented by Farooq Saeed (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Ahmed Z. Al-Garni (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) was issued on October 25, 2011 and assigned to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia). Their invention is considered by the USPTO to be a structural installation of machinery within the broad class of liquid purification or separation inventions (210/171).

Although narrowly classified according to its original classification, it is actually a “portable and autonomous desalination system [using] an autonomous reverse osmosis (RO) desalination system utilizing power from a combination of electricity generation and storage sources that include a photovoltaic (PV) unit, a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) unit, and an electricity storage unit. Electric power from PV, VAWT or storage units or a combination of these units is provided, depending upon the availability of sunlight or wind, or for night operation for water desalination using the reverse-osmosis process. The unit is portable, environmentally friendly, self-sufficient and self-sustaining in terms of supplying the electricity and fresh drinking water needs of the typical household.”

Adaptations could perhaps be applied to disaster relief and recovery (the Fukushima and Indonesia tsunami, and Haitian earthquake come to mind), or applications to the oil and gas drilling industry.

patentECO Ecofriendly Energy Inventions

LED Street Light

How Many Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Energy Inventions?

Part 3 in our Environmentally Friendly Series

We continue our review of recent environmentally friendly patents with the Energy Index.

Slightly more than half of the Energy patents in this survey are related to illumination, electrochemistry, prime-mover dynamos (motors, turbines, and the like), or electric lamps.

The Daily Energy Report estimates that “street lighting costs represent one of the largest components of a city government’s utility bill, often accounting for 10 to 38 percent of the total tab . . . the energy used by street lighting installations accounts for the third largest use of power in local governments . . . On a national level . . . there are nearly 35 million street lights in the United States, and that [number] accounts for about 1 percent of all electricity used nationally.”

Xuliang Li (Dongguan, Peoples Republic of China) attempts to reduce street lighting energy requirements through the used of LED street lights, as described in Patent Number 7,832,898, “Environmentally friendly street lamps.” Assigned to Dongguan Kingsun Optoelectronic Co., Ltd (Hengjiangxia Village, Changping Town, Dongguan, Peoples Republic of China), is classified by the USPTO as 362/249.02 for illumination by plural light sources with a support having a light emitting diode. The environmental friendliness of Li’s invention arises from its configuration, intended to reduce undesirable light dispersion.

If brought to market, this would certainly be an improvement over the old high intensity mercury-vapor lights.

Today Discovery Retires

patentECO - Environmentally Friendly to Industry

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.

patentECO - The Count on Ecofriendly Inventions

Earth Rise from Apollo 8

How Many Environmentally/Ecologically Friendly Inventions?

The title of my last post started with the phrase “environmentally friendly.” How many patents have issued in the past five years (2007-2011) that are environmentally or ecologically friendly?

Searching for the words ‘environmentally’ or ‘ecologically’ and ‘friendly’ in either patent titles or abstracts in Way Better Patents patentECO Indexes for the years 2007-2011 returns 234 utility patents. A utility patent covers inventions for a new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement of any of them. Here are the earliest patents and issue year with the following words in either the title (T) or abstract (A):

Ecology

3,855,698 Ecology Nail-Clip Reservoir Device, 1974 (T)

3,693,464 Reciprocating-Rotary Motion Conversion Device, 1972 (A)

Ecological

3,420,739 Closed Ecological System for the Support of Animal Life and the Method Thereof, 1969 (T)

3,672,579 Process for Beneficiating Magnetite Iron Ore, 1970 (A)

Ecologically

3,752,109 Ecologically Controlled Ship’s Hull Reconditioner, 1973 (T)

3,662,695 Roofing Factory Fume and Solid Waste, 1972 (A)

Environment

1,747,804 Method of Producing a Balanced Environment for Fish Life, 1930 (T)

3,579,907 Automated Controlled Environment for Continuous Production of Plant Life, 1971 (A)

Environmental

3,077,053 Environmental Planter (T), 1963

3,558,865 Weapons Effect Display System, 1971 (A)

Environmentally

3,676,401 Environmentally Disintegratable Plastics Compositions Comprising Copolymers of Ethylene and Carbon Monoxide and a Degradation Accelerator, 1972 (T)

3,668,087 Brine Dechlorination, 1972 (A)

I should note that the word ‘environment’ and its stems (-al, -ally) may not pertain to the earth’s ecosystem as we mean in these posts. These terms are often used to describe the physical, chemical, thermal, or electrical conditions or boundaries of, for example, computer, software, or logic chip operations, manufacturing processes, and spacecraft operations.

The following list of historical events may have had some influence over the patents and their issue dates as listed above:

• September, 1963. President Kennedy conducted a five-day, eleven-state conservation tour, at the instigation of Senator Gaylord Nelson, a subsequent founder of Earth Day.
• December 24, 1968. Iconic Earthrise photo over the limb of the Moon taken by Apollo 8 astronauts.
• January-February, 1969. Santa Barbara oil spill.
• January 1, 1970. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) is effective.
• March 21, 1970. The first Earth Day was observed.
• December 2, 1970. The Environmental Protection Agency begins operation.

In subsequent posts, we’ll cover recent representative environmentally friendly patents from the patentECO Indexes.