Alison Bryce: Scotland must act to pool its renewables technologies

The move for Scotland to become a major player in the renewable energy market is beginning to gather pace with a number of initiatives launched in recent weeks.

But in order to strengthen the international competitiveness of companies in this country, it is time for the Scottish Government to take the lead in creating "patent pools" for renewable technologies.

Such pools bring together the innovations of individual companies and reduce costs while allowing companies to guard their inventions.

ScottishPower and the Scottish Government have laid down a marker for the country's intent in the renewable energy market by unveiling a multi-million pound investment in tidal energy that will secure a number of lucrative contracts for the country's manufacturers.

This follows the launch in Invergordon recently of the world's largest tidal power turbine developed by Australian firm Atlantis Resources.

Patent pools have been used in industry since the 19th century and although the subject matter differs from pool to pool, the ideology remains the same. An appetite for implementing pools for particular renewable energy sources could assist in asserting Scotland as a global leader in the renewables market.

Scotland has a short window of opportunity to secure its place at the forefront of this fledgling market, but only if there is a concerted drive to pool knowledge and advancements across the sector.

Negotiating licences and commercial agreements with multiple patent holders - each with their own interests - can often be a source of frustration and delay for all parties involved in a project.

This is particularly true where a number of patented technologies are required to drive one project to market.

The telecommunications market has benefited greatly from the 3G patent pool, with the 3G standard now ubiquitous across the world. The electronics and entertainment markets have also taken advantage of the MPEG-2 patent pool, which is the technology used for video compression in DVD technology.

The ability of Scotland's academic and R&D communities to commercialise their breakthroughs has been a long-running challenge.

Inventors of technologies are, understandably, keen to protect their inventions and to ensure they maximise the commerciality of exploiting the invention in industry.

Their goal, though, must be realistically balanced against the actual opportunities available to commercialise the technologies, particularly in relation to marketing the technologies as an attractive proposition to potential licensees/customers.

Under the proposed green pools, patent owners would agree licensing terms in advance, simplifying the process of taking licensed technologies to the market, thereby putting the technology to practical use faster than otherwise would have been the case.In the final stages of negotiations in a typical project involving proprietary technology, it is not uncommon for a patent holder to impose onerous licensing conditions on the licensee, particularly in relation to licence fees, because the patent holder recognises its technology is now critical as the "final piece of the project jigsaw" and, without the technology, the project cannot move forward. In the majority of cases, with time and expense already invested, projects have little option but to accept the demands of the final patent holders to ensure the project can be completed.

Patent pools can change this trend for the better, offering advantages for everyone involved in the process.

The licensing process of patent pools is far more time- and cost-effective. By pooling and collectively managing these technologies, we can more easily facilitate licensing and cross-licensing, creating a real competitive advantage for Scottish companies.

Patents required to maximise efficiency of energy production in the case of each different type of renewable energy source could be pooled. Scotland's devolved government and our emerging renewables industry should now take the initiative to develop a model which could firmly put this sector on the world map for generations to come.

• Alison Bryce is a partner in the intellectual property & technology team at Maclay Murray & Spens.