Patent filed for Carbon Accounting
This just in from the Abuse of Intellectual Property Department: a company called Verisae has filed (and received!) a patent on software that tracks greenhouse gas emissions. Are they kidding?
Their website claims:
“Verisae’s comprehensive patent relates to methods and systems of tracking enterprise gas emissions such as Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). The solutions presented relate to collecting or entering of data relating to one or more emissions sources of an enterprise or an enterprise location, automatically calculating emissions totals, and generating emissions reports.”
Getting a patent rests on fulfilling a couple of nebulous criteria, like establishing that your invention is “novel”, “non-obvious”, and “useful”. They’ve clearly covered useful, as GHG tracking for a large institution or company involves managing thousands of inputs and calculations on a regularly recurring schedule.
Where their claim fails is at the “novel” and “non-obvious” stages. If you’ve never heard of Verisae’s work, and I told you that it is difficult to manage thousands of inputs to a greenhouse gas inventory, you may think to yourself “Hey – why doesn’t someone use a computer program!” Thus, the solution is somewhat obvious.
As for novel, again I have to disagree with the claim. Carbon accounting is based on energy accounting, with some algebra added on at the end. Companies have been managing energy with computer software for many years. They’ve also been dealing with environmental regulations on other gases like NOx, SOx, and carbon monoxide. What’s the difference between those gases and CO2? Very little, from a technological standpoint.
I’d be concerned about their aggressive claims if the market for carbon accounting software were smaller. If there were only a handful of software start-ups in this market space, Verisae may have enough heft to scare them out of business. But, carbon accounting is becoming big business, and the market is already populated by billion dollar behemoths with enough legal clout to hold their own, with start-ups appearing every day. Verisae will have to defend their patent against giants like SAP, SAS, IBM, Cisco, and Microsoft.
My prediction? This patent will be challenged and found to be about as solid as CO2.
Can't get enough? Try these related posts:
