International cooperation in clean tech innovation and diffusion is increasingly common. One of the trends in this regard is a country’s trade officials organizing an international tour of home grown clean tech companies, in many cases to the U.S., to promote their wares and explore business opportunities.
A recent case in point was the G’Day USA Australia Biofuels event last month.
The latest example of this is the delegation of UK clean tech companies visiting San Diego.
The UK Trade & Investment Roundtable, being hosted by DPR Construction, Inc. at 5010 Shoreham Place in San Diego on February 18th, will showcase several UK companies operating in and around the clean tech space.
For obvious reasons, one of the hottest clean tech sectors in the UK is wave and tidal power, including such players as Tidal Energy Limited, Pelamis, and Marine Current Turbines.
But the mini British Invasion of San Diego later this month represents a wide range of technologies from advanced batteries to green buildings.
According to James Cummings of the British Consulate in Los Angeles, the visiting companies include B&M Longworth (ultrasonic cleaning of industrial equipment), Breathing Buildings (green building ventilation systems), Ionotec (conductive ceramics for advanced batteries), Nanoflex (coating material for lighting), Securistyle (windows and doors), and the Carbon Trust (sustainable business and emissions reductions advisory services).
In some ways the UK has been at the forefront of green innovation policy. The UK Intellectual Property Office was one of the first national IP offices to initiate a fast track program for green patent applications.
So these and other UK clean tech companies were among the first to enjoy the opportunity of expedited examination of their patent applications. I hope they have taken advantage of it.
To RSVP or find out more information about this event, contact Mr. Cummings at james.cummings@fconet.fco.gov.uk.
Eric Lane is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego and the author of Green Patent Blog. Mr. Lane can be reached at elane@luce.com.
