Green Patent Fast-Track Hailed a Success

4 Jan 2011

The government this week hailed the success of its recent efforts to fast-track the processing of green patent applications, releasing figures showing 329 patents have taken advantage of the scheme since it was launched in May last year.

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) said that the Green Channel service offered by the Intellectual Property Office was on average processing green patents in eight months, compared to a 32 month waiting time for standard applications.

The figures also reveal that British firms have been the main beneficiaries of the new service with 86 per cent of requests for fast-tracking coming from UK businesses.

Intellectual Property Minister Baroness Wilcox said the service would help to bolster the competitiveness of the UK's emerging clean tech sector.

"The demand for low carbon products is growing across the world," she said. "Putting the UK at the forefront of the green technology industry will deliver enormous benefits to this country... Fast-tracking green patents provides businesses with practical help in developing green technology and bringing it to the consumer as quickly as possible."

BIS said a number of other countries, including the US, Australia and South Korea, were now considering introducing similar fast-track schemes.

It added that the patent applications had covered a wide-range of different clean technologies and that only two per cent of applications had been rejected from the fast-track service for not delivering environmental benefits.

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