Bias towards fossil energy at the German Patent Office (DPMA) in Munich? Coincidence of "COP30's missing phase out treaty on coal, oil and gas" and "hydrogen-relevance-denial by the DPMA"?
Bias towards fossil energy at the German Patent Office (DPMA) in Munich?
Coincidence of "COP30's missing phase out treaty on coal, oil and gas", and "hydrogen-relevance-denial by the DPMA"?
Bias towards fossil energy at the German Patent Office (DPMA) can be understood less as an explicit policy and more as a structural inertia of a patent system that grew up with fossil‑based industry. Officially, the DPMA presents itself as a supporter of climate‑friendly innovation: its recent analysis and annual report celebrate sharp increases in German patent applications for solar and wind technologies and explicitly frame patents as a tool to reach climate targets and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt) Yet even these documents acknowledge long periods of stagnation in alternative power generation technologies, hinting that the innovation pipeline for genuinely transformative energy systems is still fragile.
Against this backdrop, individual cases take on symbolic weight. One example is the patent application DE 10 2023 002 825 for a “bionic catalytic photocell” based on a metal‑ion “Würfel mit Lehne” (cube‑with‑backrest) cluster that aims to mimic the oxygen‑evolving centre of photosynthesis and split water into hydrogen and oxygen—exactly the sort of high‑risk, high‑impact concept that a rapid energy transition would seem to need. (ResearchGate) According to the inventor, this application ultimately met a Zurückweisungsbeschluss (rejection decision) at the DPMA, reinforcing his perception that the office is more comfortable with incremental improvements within the existing fossil‑dominated energy system than with disruptive, climate‑driven inventions whose industrial value lies in enabling deep decarbonisation. Whether or not one agrees with that interpretation, such experiences feed the narrative of a structural bias: the burden of proof for radical green technologies feels higher than for technologies that extend or optimise fossil‑based infrastructures.
This perception of bias at the level of a national patent office mirrors dynamics on the global stage. The UN climate summit COP30 in Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon, concluded with the so‑called Belém or “Mutirão” package: substantial promises to triple adaptation finance and strengthen future climate targets, but once again no binding roadmap to phase out coal, oil and gas. (Carbon Credits) Civil‑society campaigns for a Fossil Fuel Non‑Proliferation Treaty—a dedicated global decarbonisation treaty to halt new fossil expansion and set equitable phase‑out timelines—explicitly framed this absence as a central failure of COP30, arguing that “a Fossil Fuel Treaty is the roadmap the world needs and leaders failed to deliver in Belém.” (fossilfueltreaty.org) Seen from this angle, the missing Decarbonisation Treaty at the end of COP30 and a Zurückweisungsbeschluss on a hydrogen‑oriented photocell patent at the DPMA are two facets of the same systemic problem at the same time (coincidence): institutions that speak the language of climate neutrality, yet still hesitate to fully privilege technologies and legal frameworks that would truly leave the fossil era behind.
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