Patent Law

Patent Opportunity in Food-Based Plastics?

By John Rizvi

       The next time you sit down to a full plate of potatoes or a few too many cobs of corn, you may want to save your leftovers. You never know what you might be able to do with them. Make a radio, DVD player, maybe even a cell phone cover. Patent opportunity or a pot full of nonsense?

       Fujistu thinks it's the former. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, they displayed their third-generation Biblo PC, a regular computer--on the inside. On the outside, it's made of 50% "plant-based materials" (and 50% regular plastics). What Fujitsu has done is to take regular corn and process it down to corn starch, which they then transform into a polymer alloy. I came across this tidbit on Erica Ogg of CNET's news.com blog, which also reports that the manufacturing process reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 15%.

    Despite the increased costs in manufacturing the Biblo PC, it seems to me that--given the ever increasing interest in "green" living--Fujitsu is making a smart, strategic move here. I, for one, have seen an increase in the number of patents for products made with environmental integrity. Fujitsu's eco-friendly approach is likely to win the admiration and business of like-minded consumers, especially since they've kept the cost of the PC competitive against other non-green models.
   
    The Biblo PC hasn't reached the U.S.; it's only available in Japan at the moment. I'm wondering what "green" innovations inventors here in Florida might be able to patent? Think we could find a use for all those Florida coconut husks and orange peels?  I'll be carefully following Florida patenting trends in this area over the next couple of years.

Full post as published by Florida Intellectual Property Law Blog on January 09, 2008 (boomark / email).