Green energy and smart grid technology continue to provide green pasture for patent applicants. Southern California Edison, which is a large power utility, filed a patent application in 2008. The application published as Patent Pub. No. 20080177678 and claims:
A method for communicating between a utility and individual customer locations comprising the steps of:
- (a) communicating between the utility and customers and between the utility and customer equipment located at each individual customer location via the Internet or via an advanced utility meter;
- (b) providing each individual customer location with an advanced utility meter; and
- (c) using each individual utility meter to communicate between the utility and the advanced utility meter, to communicate between the advanced utility meter and individual customers and to communicate between the advanced utility meter and equipment located at each individual customer location;
- wherein the utility is an electrical utility and wherein electrical usage data from individual pieces of equipment located at each individual customer location is communicated to the advanced utility meter.
In a first Office Action, the USPTO rejected all claims as not being a novel invention in view of a patent application that was filed three years earlier that published as Patent Pub. No. 20060031180 and is assigned to USCL Corp. One of SCE’s claims was rejected as being obvious in view of both the USCL Corp. patent publication and a patent owned by a family trust: Patent No. 7,069,161. The USCL patent publication is directed to a system for informing subscribers of utility commodity costs and usage, and for controlling the utility commodity usage. The ’161 patent is directed to monitoring and managing the resource consumption and infrastructure of a building in real time.
As most patent applicants know, Office Actions having rejections are fairly common. They are communications from the patent examiner in a sometimes protracted negotiation of appropriate claim scope. SCE can respond to the Office Action by either (1) amending its claims so that they do not cover the USCL patent application’s disclosure as far as the USPTO is concerned; or (2) explaining to the patent examiner why SCE’s claims are patentable despite USCL’s disclosure.
via Smart Grid Patent Landscape Developing : Patent Law Insights.
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- SAP Spotlights New Smart Grid Developments for More Energy Efficiency
- Xcel partners with Microsoft on energy-use tracking tool – Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:
- Comverge, Itron Collaboration Further Advances the Smart Grid
- Smart Grid Patent Lawsuit : Patent Law Insights
