Carbon software company claims broad patent
Verisae, a small Minnesota-based company, has received a patent for a system to track and report greenhouse gas emissions with software, a business attracting a growing field of companies.
The company on Wednesday said that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Verisae for a method for calculating a corporation's emissions. The patent, filed in May of 2007, describes a business process for gathering corporate emissions data, generating reports, and managing carbon credits.
Verisae is already offering hosted carbon accounting software focused primarily on retail companies, basing its tracking and reporting on the protocols established by the nonprofit Climate Registry, which sets guidelines for emissions reporting.
"This is a shot across the bow to others building this stuff," said Verisae product manager Daniel Stouffer. "This is a big story for those venture capital companies which might be spending money with firms that might be building solutions that might already be covered."
Verisae's hosted software compiles the greenhouse emissions data from a corporation's different assets. For example, a refrigerator in a store has emissions associated with its energy use and the refrigerant which is a powerful greenhouse gas, Stouffer explained.
The company is also working on a way for businesses to monetize incentives to reduce emissions, Stouffer said. Businesses can make money by participating in demand response programs, where the utility reduces the electrical load of the business--such as turning down lights in a supermarket or cooling in a building--during peak times.
Reason for worry?
The patent disclosure comes at a time of heightened interest around carbon emissions-related software. Investors expect that this year will see a lot of activity in software for tracking and reporting greenhouse gases, sometimes called carbon accounting software.
On Monday, start-up Hara Software, backed by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, announced its Web-based software. SAP purchased another carbon accounting company, Clear Standards, earlier this year in a sign of consolidation among providers.
The claims of Verisae's patent appear to describe a fairly general method for managing a business' greenhouse gas emissions. But how broadly it can be enforced is unclear, said patent attorney Eric Lane in the clean-tech practice at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps.
The claims on the patent include a number of different processes, noted Lane, who examined the patent and some related documents. That means that another carbon software company could develop a product that doesn't combine all of Verisae's claims.
Still, Lane said that the patent is worth noting for the growing number of carbon accounting software companies.
"Whether other companies ought to be worried is hard to say. Should they be aware of this? Yes," Lane said. "They have a nice package."
Growing field
Patents around different forms of carbon accounting have seen a surge in the past year, according to a recent study. In programs designed for trading carbon permits, there were six patent familes in 2000, nine in 2002, and 15 in 2006.
A significant case likely to affect carbon software is a decision by the federal appeals court that made it harder to claim business process patents often implemented in software applications, Lane said.
Part of the reason for the uptick in carbon accounting software is the expectation that heavy polluters in the U.S. will be need to comply with looming regulations to cap greenhouse emissions.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 bill calls for the creation of a cap-and-trade program to limit emissions. But the earliest a bill would pass is next year and caps on carbon emissions would be phased in over many years.
Even before a national U.S. mandate, companies are investing carbon-tracking software as part of corporate sustainability programs or to administer energy efficiency initiatives.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
Not only is is a ridiculous thing to have granted a patent on, it is also just plain immoral.
The patent system was created to provide a incentive to drive innovation or disclose discoveries, such that the greater advantages was gained by society, and not the patent holders. In this case, its hard to see any advantage to anyone but Verisae, and I think it would not be a stretch to even say this was actually harmfull to everyone else.
For example, the free program from GREET has Life Cycle Analysis computations of various emissions from oil drilling, refining, distribution, manufacturing, building construction, cars, equipments. From the cradle to the grave analysis, both direct and indirect, all are accounted for, and it is not only carbon that is being tracked, but many other pollutants as well. There are similar programs in the University of Washington as well as University of California. There are many projects in the California Energy Commission about carbon tracking. There are worldwide standards for calculating how much the total carbon emissions where spent for one piece of staple for example, all the way to the tile on the roof. There is an international database for that you can subscribe to.
There are many carbon cycling and tracking models built for various companies. One of these excellent modeling software for such analysis,is Umberto, developed in Gmbh, Germany. It can be tied to various scientific international databases, like those of EcoSpold and Eco Invent that has been keeping inventories of various materials and activities, compiling emission data and energy use data of almost any kind of anthropogenic items you come across.
There are many such software that talks about carbon emissions, and most are free, as scientific knowledge published are public data.
I am sure you can always dig around for previous literature to invalidate whatever patent claims these guys have. The best that they can do is a copyright protection. The process of compiling data, method of collecting and analyzing, they have been done. There's previous literature to invalidate any patent claim around such topic.
But the irony of it all is that the impact of using such software on minimizing our emissions is hard to quantify.
For example, the free program from GREET has Life Cycle Analysis computations of various emissions from oil drilling, refining, distribution, manufacturing, building construction, cars, equipments. From the cradle to the grave analysis, both direct and indirect, all are accounted for, and it is not only carbon that is being tracked, but many other pollutants as well. There are similar programs in the University of Washington as well as University of California. There are many projects in the California Energy Commission about carbon tracking. There are worldwide standards for calculating how much the total carbon emissions where spent for one piece of staple for example, all the way to the tile on the roof. There is an international database for that you can subscribe to.
There are many carbon cycling and tracking models built for various companies. One of this excellent modeling software for such analysis is Umberto, developed in Gmbh, Germany. It can be tied to various scientific international databases, like those of EcoSpold and Eco Invent that has been keeping inventories of various materials and activities, compiling emission data and energy use data of almost any kind of anthropogenic items you come across.
There are many such software that talks about carbon emissions, and most are free, as scientific knowledge published are public data.
I am sure you can always dig around for previous literature to invalidate whatever patent claims these guys have. The best that they can do is a copyright protection. The process of compiling data, method of collecting and analyzing, they have been done. There's previous literature to invalidate any patent claim around such topic.
But the irony of it all is that the impact of using such software on minimizing our emissions is hard to quantify.
- by solson01 June 5, 2009 12:36 PM PDT
- I don't think their patent has to do about publicly available papers. That would have been shot down by the patent office so quickly. Reading the patent, it looks like the software, and the patent is around deriving carbon emissions for "enterprises" through billing information from utilities, using predictive analysis to provide estimated impacts, and tracking emissions at an asset level. It looks like from the article, that assets in this case reference specific equipment.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by contentcreator--2008 June 5, 2009 12:47 PM PDT
- It's seems like an attempt to patent the idea of keeping track of something, without any actual innovation --- ie it falls in the category of obviousness to anyone who wishes to do business in the area, to anyone skilled in the art of CO2 emissions and computers. Hardly a reason to be granted a legal monopoly. Compete in the marketplace, not the courts.
- Like this
-
- by odubtaig June 5, 2009 1:46 PM PDT
- "That would have been shot down by the patent office so quickly."
- Like this
-
(12 Comments)It looks like its tied to their other patents pending on "managing enterprise assets" as well as fugitive emissions "tracking and management."
Also looks like they reference IPCC, EPA, the WRI protocol and other published tables and docs but aren't taking credit for them.
If their claims are specific to their functionality, then how does this "crush" innovation? Patents are meant to protect intellectual property and if their software, or anyone elses, has unique inventions why should they not be protected?
Also looks like they filed this in early 2007 and provide some commercial product so it looks like they patented their product before any of these other companies were even in existence.
Sure is a lot of emotion over a patent.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!