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Tag:

GE

GE, Vietnam Sign 1 GW Wind Energy Agreement

GE, Vietnam Sign 1 GW Wind Energy Agreement

written by saurabh

President Obama’s historic Asia visit has yielded some benefits for clean energy development in Vietnam.

US-based GE has entered an agreement with the government of Vietnam for development of 1 GW wind energy capacity in the country. The agreement was one of the several commercial agreements signed between the US and Vietnam during President Obama’s visit to the south-east Asian country.

GE does have a presence in the country. Wind turbines supplied by the company are operational at a 100 MW wind farm. A private developer in Vietnam is in talks with the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) for expansion of that wind farm by 300 MW.

Vietnam has an ambitious target to add renewable energy capacity. According to the current national plan, the government plans to increase hydropower capacity from 17,000 MW at present to 21,600 MW by 2020 and 27,800 MW by 2030. Wind energy capacity is envisaged to be increased from current 140 MW to 800 MW by 2020 and 6,000 MW by 2030. The government has set a target to increase installed solar power capacity from current 850 MW to 4,000 MW by the end of this decade and 12,000 MW by the end of next.

Yet, some substantiality groups have called upon the government to reduce dependence on fossil fuel-based power plants.



May 29, 2016 0 comment
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GE Launches Digital Wind Farm In India

GE Launches Digital Wind Farm In India

written by saurabh

In what could be next big thing for the Indian wind energy market, GE recently announced the launch of a digital wind farm solution backed with big data and analytics to boost generation and improve efficiency.

Earlier this month, GE announced that it launched the Digital Wind Farm technology in India. The technology uses industrial internet to continuously monitor the equipment, optimise operations, and increase efficiency and output. The system includes several applications developed by GE including Wind PowerUp Services, Wind Energy Forecasting, PulsePOINT Condition-monitoring System, and WindCONTROL Farm Control System.

According to the company, PowerUp helps to increase the output from the wind farm by upto 5% by optimising the turbine operation to local conditions. The forecasting application results in increased accuracy in predicting power generation thereby helping the generator to deliver and the grid operator to absorb more electricity into the grid without compromising the grid stability.

The launch of this technology could not have come at a better time. India has nearly exhausted most of its high wind energy resource sites in the onshore sector. New projects are being set up at sites with low wind speeds; and while turbine manufacturers do offer turbines that operate well in low-speed conditions, additional technologies, like the one being offered by GE, certainly help in increasing the output further.

Additionally, revenue of wind project developers are set up go down significantly as two critical financial incentives will expire on 31 March 2017. Increased efficiency and output will help developers compensate this revenue fall to some extent. Developers shall also be require to forecast power generation and inform the regulators of periodic injection into the grid.

Image Credit: Davagh | Public Domain



April 17, 2016 0 comment
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Federal Circuit Gives GE LED Patents New Life in Suit Against AgiLight

Federal Circuit Gives GE LED Patents New Life in Suit Against AgiLight

written by Eric Lane

A previous post discussed AgiLight‘s summary judgment win at the district court level where the LED lighting developer’s products were found not to infringe two GE patents, U.S. Patent Nos.7,633,055 (’055 Patent) and 7,832,896 (’896 Patent)

Two other GE patents  – 7,160,140 entitled “LED string light engine” (’140 Patent) and 7,520,771 entitled “LED string light engine and devices that are illuminated by the string light Engine”(’771 Patent) – had previously been found not infringed in an earlier summary judgment decision.

The ’055 and ’896 Patents are entitled “Sealed light emitting diode assemblies including annular gaskets and method of making same” and “LED light engine,” respectively, and relate to LED string light engine structures and assembly methods.

GE appealed, and a recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment with respect to the ’896 Patent (and the two other GE patents) and affirmed summary judgment with regard to the ’055 Patent.

The Federal Circuit found the district court’s interpretation of the claim term “IDC connector” in the ’140 and ’771 Patents was incorrect and unduly narrow.  The district court limited it to a more specialized connector having four electrical terminals and a two-part housing that snaps together so the terminals pierce the conductor’s insulation.

The term should have been construed consistent with its ordinary meaning of “a connector that displaces insulation surrounding an insulated conductor to make electrical contact with the conductor.”

The issue for the ’896 Patent was whether the claim term “substantially ellipsoidal inner profile” means the entire inner profile of the LED lens must be substantially ellipsoidal or only a portion is substantially ellipsoidal.  The district court held that the entirety of the lens must be substantially ellipsoidal, and AgiLight’s product did not infringe because it included non-ellipsoidal, conical portions.

The Federal Circuit disagreed, observing that in the only embodiment disclosed in the ’896 Patent (in Figure 7, reproduced below) the bottom half of the lens is not ellipsoidal:

According to the patent, the inner profile 152 of Figure 7 is ellipsoidal.  It is undisputed that only a portion of the inner profile 152 (the part above the line at 152) is substantially ellipsoidal.  The bottom half of that inner profile (the portion below the line at 152) is not arguably substantially ellipsoidal.

 

896-Fig.-71

Thus, there was a genuine factual dispute as to whether the AgiLight product includes a “substantially ellipsoidal profile” and summary judgment was improper:

A key claim term at issue with respect to the ’055 Patent was an “annular gasket,” which the district court had interpreted to require an opening in its center that is capable of sealing off its center area.

In the the ’055 Patent, this feature is shown in Figure 4, where the annular gasket 32 surrounds LED 16 before a generally hollow member (not shown) is sealed against the top of the annular gasket to fully enclose the LED.

055-FIG.-4

The court determined that the AgiLight lens (shown below) is not an “annular gasket” because the inner surface lacks an “opening” as required by the court’s interpretation of the term.  The Federal Circuit agreed, noting that a concave inner surface cannot be an opening.  So GE will get another opportunity to prove infringement of three the four patents asserted against AgiLight.

AgiLight



June 2, 2014 0 comment
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In GE Wind Patent Fight Federal Circuit Affirms Wilkins Inventorship Story is Incredible

In GE Wind Patent Fight Federal Circuit Affirms Wilkins Inventorship Story is Incredible

written by Eric Lane

In previous posts (here, here, here, and here), I discussed a significant ancillary battle in the GE-Mitsubishi wind patent war.  In this entertaining sideshow, GE and a former employee, Thomas Wilkins, have been fighting over ownership of two of the patents involved in the larger litigation.

The patent-at-issue in this case is U.S. Patent No. 6,921,985 (’985 Patent).  The ’985 Patent is directed to a wind turbine that includes a blade pitch control system and a turbine controller coupled with the blade pitch control system.  To increase the reliability of the turbine’s power supply, the turbine controller causes the blade pitch control system to vary pitch in response to transitions between different power sources.

After Wilkins brought a lawsuit to correct inventorship, Mitsubishi intervened in the suit.  The case aroused Mitsubishi’s interest because the ’985 Patent is one of several asserted by GE against Mitsubishi in at least two lawsuits.

After the district court decided that Wilkins was not a co-inventor of the invention claimed in the ’985 Patent, Mitsubishi and Wilkins appealed.

In a recent decision, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court ruling.

To overcome the presumption that the named inventors on a patent are correct, an alleged co-inventor must prove his inventive contribution by clear and convincing evidence.  The putative inventor can’t rely on his testimony alone.  Rather, there must be evidence to corroborate his testimony.

The problem for Wilkins was that the district court found his testimony on inventorship not credible, and the proffered corroborating witness testimony fell short because the witnesses either relied on Wilkins or failed to provide ample basis for their opinions.

On appeal, Wilkins acknowledged his credibility problems but argued that the instances in which his credibility was impeached only extended to “immaterial and tangential points.”  The appeals court disagreed:

Based on the trial record, we find no clear error in the district court’s assessment that the substance of Wilkins’s testimony, which addressed central issues such as conception and contribution, was inconsistent and purposefully evasive.  We agree with the district court’s conclusion that Wilkins left his case with no credibility.

As it turned out, this wasn’t an issue of insufficient corroborating evidence of inventorship.  Rather, as the court explained, the document Wilkins sent to GE’s German engineers, which he argued demonstrated his conception of the invention, did not disclose any elements of the claimed invention:

Notwithstanding that the record is devoid of proof that the German engineers relied on anything discussed in that document as part of their conception . . . our review of the record verifies that the document does not disclose any of the subject matter claimed in the ’985 patent.

In fact, the document in question “does not even depict the key feature Wilkins claims to have invented, i.e., a UPS powering the wind turbine’s three controllers.”

Therefore, there was no credible evidence of Wilkins’s conception:  ”Wilkins provided no credible testimony for that document to corroborate” and “without credible testimony from Wilkins, there was nothing to corroborate.”

This chapter in the GE-Mitsubishi patent litigation appears to be closed.



May 27, 2014 0 comment
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Who Owns All the Smart Grid Patents?

Who Owns All the Smart Grid Patents?

written by Eric Lane

Ever wonder who owns all the smart grid patents?  With all of the acquisitions in smart grid (see, e.g., here and here), it seems a lot of folks have been considering the question.

A recent study by patent analytics firm Relecura on smart grid patent holders seeks to answer this question.  It turns out the top five are ABB, GE, Panasonic, Siemens, and Toshiba:

Smart-Grid-Top-Patent-Holders

The study breaks out the results by six sub-technology categories (communications, software, smart meters, sensors, substation automation, and distribution automation) and lists the top large entities and SMEs in each subcategory:

Smart-Grid-Top-Sub-techs-1

Smart-Grid-Top-Sub-techs-2

The full report, which can be found here, styles itself a “preliminary survey of the Smart Grid assignee landscape and first-cut identification of patent asset holders in Smart Grid technology.”

According to Relecura, the purpose of the study is to identify potential licensees and acquisitions targets for each of the sub-technologies.  The study uses 2008 as a reference year, and defines its Potential Licensees and Potential Acquisitions Targets relative to that year.

More particularly, Potential Licensees are entities whose patent applications were filed in 2008 or later while Potential Acquisitions Targets are typically small or medium sized entities with granted patents from applications filed in 2008 or earlier.  In other words, small companies and SMEs with relatively mature patent portfolios are deemed more ripe for acquisition and those with younger patent portfolios are thought to be more amenable to licensing IP.

With so much activity in smart grid M&A, this report could be useful to a lot of people.



March 26, 2014 0 comment
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The Next Apple Will be Found in LED Lighting

written by Lisa Ann Pinkerton

Who doesn’t wish they had invested in Apple when it was $16 a share? Quite often, timing the market is more intuition than science. Those who know analog to digital inflection points are watching LEDs. Get it right, and enormous wealth can be created. Time it wrong and you’re left in the dust, like Polaroid.

Continue Reading


May 16, 2013 0 comment
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Battery-Equipped Wind Turbine Better Integrates Green Energy Onto Grid

written by Yale Environment 360

General Electric recently introduced a wind turbine equipped with a storage battery, creating a type of “hybrid” turbine that industry leaders hope will improve the integration of intermittent energy sources onto the grid and reduce the costs of wind power.

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May 8, 2013 0 comment
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Microgrids: Coming or No?

written by Walter Wang

You know that experience, when you buy a new car, and suddenly you see the model everywhere? Since Superstorm Sandy I’ve had the equivalent experience with the term ‘microgrid.’

Policymakers and thought leaders in the US Northeast started talking microgrid in earnest shortly

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May 6, 2013 4 comments
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GE Tests High-Efficiency Wind Turbine in the Netherlands

written by Walter Wang

General Electric recently announced it had started testing the prototype of what it calls the world’s most efficient high-output wind turbine. The new 2.5-120 is being tested in Wieringermeer, Netherlands.

The 2.5-120 harnesses the power of the Industrial Internet to analyze tens of thousands of data points

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April 29, 2013 0 comment
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Citing Pastry Precedents Court Rules Agilight Does Not Infringe GE LED Patents

written by Walter Wang

A previous post reported on GE’s patent infringement suit against AgiLight asserting several patents relating to LED string light engine structures and assembly methods.

In a recent decision the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio granted AgiLight’s motion for summary judgment on the remaining claims of two patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 7,633,055 (’055 Patent)

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April 12, 2013 0 comment
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Groundbreaking Research Identifies IP Arms Race in Wind

written by Walter Wang

A new research report published at EWEA 2013 by consultancy Totaro & Associates has catalogued over 27,500 global patent filings related to horizontal-axis, utility-scale wind turbine technology. Totaro & Associates CEO and Principal, Philip Totaro says that, “We estimate there are ~45,000 to 50,000 global filings in total, and we are continuing our research to catalogue and

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February 8, 2013 0 comment
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Shaping IP Rights in SCADA Systems to Benefit Wind Turbine Purchasers

written by Walter Wang

As the sales of wind turbines increase, it is likely that the disputes between suppliers and purchasers will also increase. Wind turbines encompass a variety of tangible and intangible components, including the software necessary for operations and maintenance.

One contractual issue that turbine suppliers and

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December 26, 2012 0 comment
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GE Wins Wind Patent Ownership As Court Finds Testimony Too Impeachy

written by Walter Wang

In previous posts (here, here, and here), I discussed a major offshoot of the GE-Mitsubishi wind patent war in which GE and a former employee, Thomas Wilkins, tussled over ownership of two of the patents involved in the larger litigation.

The remaining patent-at-issue in this ownership

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December 19, 2012 0 comment
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CEPGI Reveals Granted Green Patents Reached Record High in Q2 2012

written by Walter Wang

For more than ten years, Heslin Rothenberg’s Clean Energy Patent Growth Index has been reliably tracking green technology patent grants. The CEPGI consistently provides interesting data, which often put solid numbers behind the trends those of us in this field see, hear anecdotally, or just intuitively know.

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November 27, 2012 0 comment
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