The United States Department of Energy is trying to make it easier and less costly for startup companies to license some of the many low-carbon technologies developed under its national laboratories.
Of the 15,000 patents and patent applications held by 17 of the department’s national laboratories, only 10 percent have been licensed to be commercialized. And currently, a single license can cost up to $50,000.
Energy secretary Stephen Chu said the goal of «America’s Next Top Energy Innovator» challenge, the new program, is to double the number of companies that are able to commercialize technologies developed by the national labs.
Beginning on May 2, startups can submit business plans that make use of technologies that if approved will require them to pay only $1,000 for each patent. Companies can get as many as three licenses.
Entrepreneurs have until December 15 to submit a business plan.
The government also plans to reduce paperwork, thus allowing for quicker processing of patents.
“Because we’ve cut the upfront fees and reduced the paperwork, we’ll make it easier for start-up companies to succeed and create the new jobs our economy needs,” Dr. Chu said.
“Our goal is simple: Unleash America’s innovation machine and win the global race for the clean energy jobs of the future,» he adds.
Aside from dropping the licensing fees, the department also will make it easier for companies to use the national labs for collaborative research and development by lowering the advance payment requirement to cover only the first 60 days of work rather than 90 days.
In return, the firms will be required to negotiate equities and royalties on a case-to-case basis when they start generating revenue from the technologies developed.
Top choices
The country’s 17 National Laboratories are a system of facilities overseen by the Department of Energy that conduct research on technologies for economic and defense interests of the United States.
Most of the laboratories are actually federally-funded research and development centers managed by private corporations and academic universities under contract with the department.
Available patents from the national laboratories cover a variety of energy industry technologies. An example is a Berkeley Labs system that converts solar energy to chemical energy and then to thermal energy. It uses a special compound that heats up when exposed to light which can be transported elsewhere to release the thermal energy.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, meanwhile, developed a new semiconductor material that has a broad range of potential applications, including high-efficiency solar cells, solid-state lighting and high-speed transistors.
Low-cost, scalable and reusable substrates can be used to slash production costs for these materials dramatically, the department said.
The department also has a smart grid appliance controller developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that can be installed into household appliances. The automatic demand response controls would turn them off for a while until the wider electrical grid can be stabilized in times of disruption to prevent blackouts.
The department also has patent available to make existing cars emit less greenhouse gasses. The Argonne National Laboratory has a patent up for grabs for a new catalyst that removes 80 percent to 85 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions from diesel fuel combustion by converting the compound into nitrogen.
