11th Mar 2024
In June 2023, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a new concept car named the Vision One-Eleven. While paying homage to the iconic C111 from the 1970s, the Vision One-Eleven concept provides a glimpse into what the future of electric vehicles (EVs) might look like. In particular, the concept features ‘new’ type of electric motor – an axial-flux motor. The manufacturer of this motor (a spin-out from Oxford University) claims that, in contrast to the traditional radial-flux electric motors powering our EVs today, their axial-flux motor “requires one third of the space, one third of the weight and delivers double the torque density.” This is, of course, a big statement.
29th Feb 2024
We’re joined by our Cleantech & Energy team to talk all about innovations in wind energy. Wind technology is critical to the energy transition and achieving energy security. The team will assess the state of the industry and review what we can learn from published patent filings.
31st Jan 2024
Listen to our latest episode as we celebrate the 6-month anniversary of the Unified Patent Court opening its doors.
29th Jan 2024
Today (January 29th) marks World Automobile Day. It was exactly 138 years ago today that Karl Benz applied for Patent# 37435 for ‘a vehicle powered by a gas engine’. It brought the concept of the automobile to the world and transformed our expectations of personal mobility.
17th Jan 2024
Between scoffing mince pies and watching Die Hard (again), I found time over the festive period to watch David Attenborough’s latest documentary series, Planet Earth III. While the shots were predictably spectacular and the animals suitably fascinating, this time around the series focused much more on the destruction of the natural world due to human activity. The tear-jerking stories included a family of African elephants facing decimation following climate change induced drought; a Brazilian maned wolf and her pups narrowly avoiding disaster as their grassland home is burned to make way for agriculture; and numerous sea turtles trapped in floating plastic detritus.
21st Dec 2023
In an era defined by the urgent need for global sustainability, nuclear is one of the many technologies that must play its part. Throughout this series, we have looked at the critical role of intellectual property in driving innovation and economic progress, while shaping the course of the nuclear industry’s development. Published patent filings serve as a useful proxy for trends in innovation and investment. So, it’s certainly encouraging to see filings in the past decade beginning to return to levels last season in the 50s and 60s.
19th Dec 2023
This is the final article of our mini-series ‘Powering Tomorrow: Intellectual Property & Nuclear in the Age of Net Zero’ where our specialists delve into the role of intellectual property within the nuclear sphere, looking at developments in traditional nuclear power as the industry strives to adapt to the sustainable energy landscape of the future, and at […]
27th Nov 2023
Companies active in nuclear fission-based power have historically filed relatively few patents. It is likely that this was because problems encountered in their nuclear power plant development were specific to individual power plants. Why protect the resulting inventions if they were unlikely to be used elsewhere? However, the development of modular reactors such as small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced modular reactors (AMRs) could change this mindset. Suddenly, the product becomes scalable, capable of being built in factories and exported around the world. There is more potential to licence technology, or sell modular units, and therefore patents for this technology may become more valuable.