Tag: Domestic
US Infrastructure Bill’s EV Charger Funding
Infrastructure Bill's EV Charger Funding a Good Start, but More Funding Likely to be Needed to Meet Growing Demand
IHS Markit expects US infrastructure bill to supplement only 66 percent of required US EV charger growth through 2026
Today President Joe Biden signed into law the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. The bill is expected to support the automotive industry in many ways, from improved road conditions, cleaner commercial vehicles, electric vehicle battery factories, battery recycling, and lithium mining and refining. However, one of the largest EV appropriations will be toward vehicle charging. Some $7.5 billion has been allocated to alternative fuel charging, primarily for electric vehicle chargers and supporting infrastructure across the country.
IHS Markit estimates that the US federal investment will directly contribute to the construction, maintenance, and operation of approximately 400,000 newly installed Level 2 AC and Level 3 DC Fast chargers in the US between 2022 and 2026. Under the details outlined in the bill, chargers must be open-sourced, meaning funding cannot go to Tesla's proprietary Supercharger network, unless it opens it up to non-Tesla vehicles.
However, IHS Markit believes this investment is unlikely to meet the growing demand of the US plug-in EV fleet. Along with the nation's current electric vehicle charging infrastructure of 100,000+ chargers at 50,000 publicly available locations, IHS Markit estimates there will need to be about 600,000 additional chargers installed at another 100,000 public locations by 2026.
The figure does not include the 3.2 million domestic, private Level 2 chargers expected to be installed in residential homes - mostly in garages - over the investment period.
This bill represents the first large-scale national investment
in EV charging infrastructure. "The Biden administration's
investment isn't hyperbole and will have a significant impact on US
electric vehicle charging supply," said Mark Boyadjis, IHS Markit
global automotive technology lead. "However, even an investment at
this scale will come up short against the rapid growth of electric
cars hitting the road soon, pointing to a need for additional
support from municipal, utility, and private investments to fill
the gap."
IHS Markit expects that the EV Vehicles in Operation (VIO) on the
road in the United States will increase from 1.5 million in 2020 to
about 9.3 million units in 2026. IHS Markit estimates that the
nation needs approximately 700,000 cumulative chargers by 2026 to
meet that demand, and the 400,000 that the US bill will support is
not enough to get us there entirely. During the 5-year investment
period, Federal subsidies are only expected to fulfill two-thirds
of what is required to energize the future EV fleet in the US.
Additionally, IHS Markit forecasts EV battery capacity to steadily increase over the coming years. "This will allow the average EV to travel further on a single charge, in principle lessening the need for such abundant infrastructure, said Graham Evans, director, automotive supply chain & technology, IHS Markit. "However, from a consumer perception perspective, abundant EV charging is needed to encourage skeptical consumers that a BEV is workable for them."
75 percent of US EV owners prefer to charge at home, but a successful transition to a national electric vehicle fleet requires a way for those without that capability to charge in a convenient manner at public facilities. Overall, only 63 percent of US households have access to a garage and that figure is less in urban areas where more than 50 percent of EV sales occur. "If EVs remain impractical for apartment, condo, and historic home dwellers, we cannot adequately reach the administration's stated EV goals," said Colin Bird-Martinez, automotive consulting principal analyst, IHS Markit.
The bill sets aside $5 billion to be granted to states to deploy EV charging stations in US; and $2.5 billion in grants to public entities to deploy publicly-available EV charging, hydrogen fueling, propane fueling, and natural gas fueling infrastructure through 2022-26.
Australia and NZ: ‘Reasonable Efforts’ to Join the Hague Agreement on Industrial Designs Mean Nothing
Recently, both Australia and New Zealand have reached ‘agreement in principle’ on proposed free trade agreements (FTAs) with the UK. Details of the Australia-UK agreement in principle can be found on the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) website, while the NZ-UK agreement in principle is available from the NZ Foreign Affairs and Trade website. Each document states that Australia/NZ will make all reasonable efforts to join the UK as members of the Hague Agreement, which provides an international registration system for industrial designs. An article which appeared on the Lexology site last month stated that these developments imply that ‘Australia has (finally!) agreed to join the Hague Agreement on Industrial Designs’.
This is not true. I do not see Australia joining the Hague Agreement in the foreseeable future, Australia-UK FTA notwithstanding. I am less familiar with the political position in New Zealand, but suspect that the situation is not much different in the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Here is a fun fact… Article 17.1(5) of the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), which entered into force on 1 January 2005, states that:
Each Party shall make its best efforts to comply with the provisions of the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs (1999), and the Patent Law Treaty (2000), subject to the enactment of laws necessary to apply those provisions in its territory.
Yet here we are, nearly 17 years later, and Australia is still not a member of the Hague Agreement. It would seem that the phrase ‘best efforts’ in a trade agreement basically amounts to nothing more than a promise to think about it over an unspecified – and potentially indefinite – time frame. I suspect, therefore, that an undertaking to make ‘reasonable efforts’ in an agreement in principle is code for ‘they want us to do it; we have no plans to commit to doing it; but we do not want to hold up negotiations by actually saying no.’
And there are very good reasons – namely three separate processes of review and consultation since 2012 – for believing that Australia has no intention of joining the Hague Agreement any time soon.
Read more »Innovation Patent System ‘Ends’ not with a Whimper, but a Bang!
The innovation patent has been Australia’s second tier patent right since 2001, but it is now being phased out. Just over two months have now passed since the final day on which new, original (i.e. not derived from an existing application) innovation patents could be filed. As of 26 August 2021, the only way to obtain an innovation patent application is by division or conversion from an application that itself has a filing date on or before 25 August 2021. Innovation patents have a maximum term of eight years from the initial filing date, and thus after 25 August 2029, at the latest, there will be no more innovation patents. Predictably, the number of innovation patent applications being filed grew significantly during the weeks and months leading up to the final deadline, driven in large part by applications of dubious merit originating in China and India.
So how did filing numbers end up? And why has it taken two months for me to get around to this analysis? Well, to answer the second question first, the huge deluge of applications – nearly 2,800 over 25 days in August, over half of which were filed in the final six days – created a backlog that IP Australia is still clearing. As at the time of writing, there remain around 300 innovation patent applications that are yet to be processed in any way, meaning that details of who filed them, and who the applicants are (and where they are from) remain unavailable. At this point, however, a clear picture is emerging. Furthermore, there is some evidence that IP Australia has been prioritising the order in which the remaining applications are being processed according to the workload involved, such that almost all unprocessed applications were filed by Indian applicants.
In the final days, Australian resident applicants filed innovation patent applications in unprecedented numbers, apparently driven primarily by those who had received advice from patent attorneys about the final deadline and the implications of the phase out of the innovation patent. Indian and Chinese applicants continued to fleece the system for cheap patent certificates, accounting for over half of the applications filed in August. Filings originating elsewhere in the world increased only modestly, suggesting that genuine demand for innovation patents by foreign applicants remained relatively low until the end.
Read more »It’s Farewell to Shelston IP, as IPH Executes Another ‘Integration’
The corporate behemoth that is IPH Limited (ASX:IPH) – which at close on 10 September 2021 had a market capitalisation of A$2.00 billion, and was trading at a near-all-time-high of A$9.270 – has, through a series of acquisitions and ‘integrations’, brought about the demise of a number of well-known names in the Australasian IP firmament. Fisher Adams Kelly, Callinans, Cullens, Watermark and Baldwins are all brands that, until not so long ago, were familiar to anyone with an interest in the IP services market, but which no longer exist. And on 8 September 2021, IPH announced [PDF, 98kB] that Shelston IP is next in line. Shelston IP will be integrated with Spruson & Ferguson Australia, with the combined firm operating under the Spruson & Ferguson brand from 1 November 2021, at which time the Shelston IP brand will be retired. Full systems integration is expected to occur in December 2021.
Ironically, at the time of writing, the ‘About us’ page (Wayback Machine archive, for posterity) on the Shelston IP web site summarises the firm’s history as follows:
Shelston IP has provided excellence in intellectual property for over 160 years. Throughout this time we have developed deep relationships with our clients including with some of the world’s most recognisable companies; relationships that span more than fifty years. Like our clients we never stand still and have innovated, grown and aligned our business for success ensuring we will still be here in another 100 years.
Sadly, this is not to be, and many (me included) will be sad to see the demise of yet another firm with such a long history. But IPH – unlike Xenith IP Group Limited, the listed entity that Shelston IP itself established and which went on to own Watermark and Griffith Hack before being acquired by IPH – has been uncompromising in its determination to generate greater efficiencies and profitability from its stable of firms. And while IPH is not without critics, both within and outside the profession, it is no mean feat to build a A$2 billion company. By my estimation, this now makes IPH large enough for inclusion in the ASX 200 index. Love it or hate it, according to established financial metrics, IPH is a hugely successful enterprise.
I have taken a look at some of the data on changes in the number of patent attorneys at firms within the IPH group over the past 18 months or so, as well as the group’s patent filing numbers over the past financial year, to try to get a sense of where the IPH businesses may be heading. I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with IPH CEO, Dr Andrew Blattman, on Friday 10 September 2021. In what follows, I will present a few of my observations, along with relevant comments from my discussion with Dr Blattman.
Dr Blattman is, of course, the CEO of a listed company, and he has obligations to shareholders and the market that may limit what he can say publicly, and which at the same time constrain him from misleading the market in any way. Not everyone (including me) will agree with everything he says. However, I have done my best to accurately report his comments without distorting or misrepresenting his views. (I have used the blockquote style when reporting Dr Blattman’s comments to clearly differentiate them from my opinions and commentary, although it will be obvious from the context that they are not exact quotes.) I am not trying to engage in hard-hitting journalism here, just to be a source of information and opinion. And please keep in mind, if you choose to engage through the comments section at the end, that the High Court has just confirmed that I am legally responsible for any defamatory content you may post!
Read more »Did the Pandemic Affect 2020 Australian PCT Filings?
As I reported back in January, there were some indications of weakening patent filings by Australian applicants in 2020. Domestic applicants filed 10% fewer Australian standard applications than in 2019. And while provisional filings overall fell by only 2%, those prepared with professional assistance – which involve greater expense, but are also far more likely to provide a sound basis for valuable future patent rights – fell by nearly 5%. While perhaps not the sole factor, it is logical to assume that the business impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was somewhat influential in this decline. Of course, Australian application numbers are not the only indicator of filing activity. Each year, Australian residents file over 1,500 international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), representing potential future filings not only in Australia, but also in any of the other 152 (as at the time of writing) contracting states. So it is also interesting to know whether there was a corresponding decline in PCT filings by Australian residents in 2020.
The short answer is, possibly, but not as large as the decline in standard application filings. While it is almost certain that some PCT applications filed in 2020 have yet to be published, and are therefore not visible, the worst-case decline in international filings by Australian residents is around 6%. However, once all applications are published and available to be counted, there may be closer to 2% fewer PCT applications filed by Australians in 2020 as compared with 2019. This would be consistent with a similar decline in the previous year, and with the recent trend in provisional filings, which predate the pandemic.
Furthermore, the pattern of PCT filings across 2020 was much the same as in previous years, with no indication of applicant behaviour being influenced by the progress of the pandemic.
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