Patents in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

Data technology goods, such as computers, telecommunications equipment and software, have turn into a cornerstone of contemporary life.  The economies of developed and developing countries have benefited greatly from the growth of data technologies industries themselves, as properly as the enhanced competitiveness most industrial sectors appreciate as a result of adopting info technology.  Essential to the growth of data technology, however, has been intellectual property rights.  Patents, copyrights, designs, trade secrets and trademarks are all employed to protect the substantial investments that go into information technologies goods and guarantee future technological developments in this field.

India is nicely known for its software program industry, which has growth exponentially in a brief space of time. According to estimates of the National Association of Software and Services Businesses (NASSCOM) – the principal trade body and chamber of commerce of India’s IT and enterprise method outsourcing industries – the domestic software program market generates annual revenues of about US billion, the bulk of which is exported. The number of ICT-related patents grew steadily from the mid-1990s to 2005, at an average rate of four.7% a year from 2000. In 2005, much more than 50500 international patent applications were filed under the PCT to protect inventions in ICT. The number of ICT-related patents increased a lot more rapidly than the total number of PCT applications: on average, there is a bigger proportion of ICT related patents in countries’ patent portfolios. The share of ICT-related patents in total patents taken by countries rose by five percentage points in 2003-05 as compared with the 1995-97 level. This proportion doubled in the BRIICS countries, where 36% of patents filed in 2003-05 had been related to ICT. Finland, Singapore, China, the Netherlands, Korea and Japan had a significant concentration of ICT related patents compared to all countries, as depicted by the revealed technological benefit index. Over 2003-05, much more than 50% of patents taken by China, Finland and Singapore concerned ICT, compared to an average of 35% of total patents.

The United States (35%), Japan (18.6%) and Germany (7.7%) had been the leaders in ICT-related patenting under the PCT in 2005. China (4.2%) and Korea (4.6%) had been amongst the top five countries in ICT-related patents. The number of ICT patents has risen strongly in these two countries over the last ten years, with a lot more than 2 000 patents in China and about 2 300 in Korea in 2005. Tokyo is the leading region for ICT-related inventions, contributing to practically 9 400 ICT patents and 6.8% of all ICT-related patents filed under the PCT. Tokyo is followed by two regions in the United States — San Jose/San Francisco/Oakland in California and New York/Newark/Bridgeport on the east coast. Seoul and the province of Gyeonggi-do in Korea rank fourth, with four 400 ICT-related patents. The Noord-Brabant region (Netherlands), Ile de France (France) and Oberbayern (Germany) are the top three European regions patenting in ICT. The city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province of China made a spectacular entrance into the top 15 ICT related patenting regions in 2003-05, with 52% of the patents taken for ICT related inventions made in China

Patents in Data and Communication Technologies (ICT) are identified making use of the International Patent Classification (IPC) system: 1 or many classification codes are attributed to the patent in the course of the examination process. For emerging technologies, however, a particular category or class may not however be incorporated into the patent classification method, which makes it tough to identify the patents related to these technologies ex post. Patents taken in the ICT sector can be split into four fields, based on the following list of IPC codes:

Telecommunications: G01S,G08C,G09C,H01P,H01Q,H01S3/(025,043,063,067,085,0933,0941,103,133,18,19,25),

H1S5,H03B,H03C,H03D, H03H,H03M,H04B,H04J,H04K,H04L,H04M,H04Q.

Consumer electronics: G11B,H03F,H03G,H03J,H04H,H04N,H04R,H04S.

Computers, office machinery:

B07C,B41J,B41K,G02F,G03G,G05F,G06,G07,G09G,G10L,G11C,H03K,H03L.

Other ICT:

G01B,G01C,G01D,G01F,G01G,G01H,G01J,G01K,G01L,G01M,G01N,G01P,G01R,G01V,G01W,G02B6,

G05B,G08G,G09B,H01B11,H01J(11/,13/,15/,17/,19/,21/,23/,25/,27/,29/,31/,33/,40/,41/,43/,45/),H01L.

PATENTS IN NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology is the study and use of the distinctive characteristics of supplies at the nanometer scale, between the classical significant-molecule level to which traditional physics and chemistry apply and the atomic level in which the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics take effect. A recent study by Bhaven Sampat estimates that a lot more than 3700 nanotechnology patents had been issued in the United States between 2001 and 2003. That’s a significant number of patents for a technologies that has so far produced few actual merchandise. But, in reality, there are significant factors to feel that Sampat’s numbers understate the pace of nanotechnology patenting.

The number of published patent applications in the United States that incorporate the relevant terms in their

claims has increased significantly, as the following table demonstrates.

Table 1. Published U.S. Patent Applications in Nanotechnology

Year

Published U.S. Applications

2001

403

2002

1975

2003

2964

2004

3842

Inventive activities in nanotechnology have increased substantially since the end of the 1990s: at 18%, the average annual growth rate in nanotechnology patents filed under the PCT surpasses that of overall PCT applications (12.1%) for the period 1995-2005. Most countries report a substantial enhance in their shares of nanotechnology in total national patenting in the mid-2000s as compared with the mid-1990s, although nanotechnology patenting remains fairly restricted (1.1% of total patents on average). Efforts undertaken in Japan are highlighted by the rise in the number of nanotechnology patents in its portfolio (from .1% of all patents in 1995-97 to 1% in 2003-05). Singapore, Ireland, the United States, Japan and Israel have a higher concentration of nanotechnology patents than other countries, with a revealed technological benefit index in nanotechnology ranking from 2.7 (Singapore) to 1.1 (Israel). The European Union, Japan and the United States have contributed to 84% of all nanotechnology patents. The share of nanotechnology patents for inventions created in Japan tripled between 1995 and 2005, reaching 16.7% of all nanotechnology patents in 2005. Korea has also broadly invested in nanotechnology, and is now the fifth-ranked country in nanotechnology-related patenting.

The time for nanotechnology has come and a classic technological revolution is unfolding. According to the National Science Foundation, by 2015 the annual global marketplace for nano-related goods and services will top trillion, creating it one of the fastest growing industries in history.

Despite the fact that the method of converting standard study in nanoscience into viable marketplace goods will be lengthy and challenging, governments across the globe are impressed by nanotechnology’s potential and are staking their claims and doling out billions of dollars, euros and yen for research. In 2002, worldwide government funding of study and development in nanotechnology exceeded billion, with the US government alone spending four million (it increased to 4 million in 2003). In fact, funding from the US government has surged nearly sevenfold in the last six years, beginning at 6 million in 1997 to a budgeted 7 for 2004.

Though the US accounts for virtually a third of global nanotechnology spending, about 40 countries have set up comparable initiatives. In December 2003, the US Congress passed the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) of 2000 into law and recommended appropriating .7 billion for the next four years for the creation of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office along with funding for a variety of federal nanotechnology initiatives and programs.

The European Union has earmarked billion from 2002 to 2006, whilst Japan has increased funding from million in 1997 to practically million in 2002. Note that it is impossible to accurately figure out the total funding in nanotechnology given that these figures do not consist of private funding. Some additional statistics from Nanotech Report 200322 are summarized below:

Public and private firms will spend close to billion worldwide on nanotechnology R and D in 2003.

The US government has appropriated billion for nanotechnology considering that 2000, putting it on track to be the largest US government funded science initiative because the Apollo Mission.

Presently, much more than 700 businesses are involved in nanotechnology.
40,000 US scientists are at present capable of working in nanotechnology.
In the past four years, more than 1,700 tiny tech jobs have been produced from venture capital funding.

million in venture capital funding has gone to nanotechnology startups since 1999, with 6 million invested in 2002.

Nanotechnology patents

To reflect the growing interest and importance of nanotechnology in patents, the EPO, the JPO and the USPTO have made intensive efforts to improve their respective classification systems and to collect all nanotechnology-related patents within a single class. The EPO defines nanotechnology as follows: the term nanotechnology covers entities with a controlled geometrical size of at least one functional component below 100nm in 1 or a lot more dimensions susceptible to make physical, chemical or biological effects available which are intrinsic to that size. It covers equipment and approaches for controlled analysis, manipulation, processing, fabrication or measurement with a precision below 100nm. In 2003, a nanotechnology working group was developed in the EPO to establish a definition and to identify nanotechnology patents by means of keyword searches, consultation with EPO experts in the field, and peer reviews by external specialists. As a result of these endeavours, about 90 000 out of 20 million patents and non-patent literature documents were tagged to class Y01N

PATENTS IN ENVIRONMENT-RELATED TECHNOLOGIES

Investment in clean technologies can help achieve a wide range of environmental objectives, from mitigating climate change, to controlling air and water pollution, and enhancing resource efficiency in general. Patents taken in renewable energy technologies or in tactics for controlling automobile emissions contribute to the development of clean technologies. Patenting of inventions related to renewable energy has grown continuously, specifically considering that the mid-1990s. On average, the proportion of PCT filings to safeguard renewable energy technologies in all patents increased in most countries, specifically the European Union and Japan. Nonetheless, the level of patenting in renewable energy remains low: about 700 international patent applications had been filed in 2005. Three generations of renewable energy technologies can be distinguished (International Energy Agency, 2006): very first-generation technologies, which have already reached maturity (hydropower, biomass combustion, geothermal energy) second-generation technologies, which are rapidly evolving (solar energy, wind power, etc.) and third-generation technologies, which are presently under development

(e.g. concentrating solar power, ocean energy, improved geothermal systems, etc.).

Patents in Environment-related technologies

Based on an intensive review of literature, a set of keywords had been identified and utilised to establish proper IPC codes which relate directly to renewable energy in

Wind: F03D(1/*, three/*, five/*, 7/*, 9/*, 11/*), B06L8/00, B63H13/00

Solar: F03G6/*, F24J2/*, F25B27/00, F26B3/28, H01L31/042, H02N6/00, E04D13/18, B60L8/00

Geothermal: F24J003/*, F03G4/*, H02N10/00

Ocean: F03B13/(12-24), F03G7/(05, 04), F03B7/00

Biomass: C10L5/(42-44), F02B43/08, C10L1/14, B01J41/16

Waste: C10L5/(46-48), F25B27/02, F02G5/*, F23G4/46, F01K25/14, C10J3/38, F23G7/10, H01M8/06

Conclusions

The World’s most competitive companies are built on protected innovations and brands. As exclusive rights to ideas and innovations take up a growing share of company value, patent, trademark and design info is the cornerstone of all corporate methods.