Cleantech: Changing the Perception of Energy Law & Patents

In summer 2009, when Pierce Law student Daniel Abelson received an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship to work with the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning to expand the use of renewable energy in the state, some people wondered what renewable energy had to do with Schweitzer, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning physician and humanitarian.

And then they thought about it: Albert Schweitzer Fellows develop and implement direct service projects with a lasting impact on the health of underserved communities. Hmmm…Clean and renewable energy = less pollution and the reduction of global warming = a healthier world.

Now Abelson and  the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship asks the Pierce Law community to again reconsider its perceptions about clean energy, or cleantech , and how it affects lawyers and their careers.  On March 18, they will have a dinner meeting where Abelson and Jack Jacobs, founder and Managing Partner of Cleantech Law Partners of Boston, Portland and San Francisco, will discuss how the law can be used to encourage development of cleantech.

They will field questions about this growing field. What do cleantech and the law have in common?  Why should lawyers understand the relationship? 

Some answers lie in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that allots close to $92 billion towards clean technology.  In addition the USPTO has accelerated examination of  “green” technology patents, and one source has estimated growth to triple in at least one area of clean tech patents by 2012.

Other answers will be found at dinner in the Board Room Thursday, March 18 at 5:30 p.m.

For more about the Schweitzer Fellowships, visit http://www.schweitzerfellowship.org/features/us/nhvt.