Over the last few years one very specific chemical property has drawn the intense interest of government policymakers around the world: carbon content.

The reason is that carbon-containing substances have commonly been burned to release the energy that powers a modern economy. And, in releasing energy, these burning substances also release carbon dioxide.

According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world has a few decades’ time to reach a state of carbon neutrality — no net increases in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. To reach such a carbon-neutral state, the G20 countries, under the leadership of Saudi Arabia, proposed establishing a circular carbon economy based on four pillars.

Reduce the amount of carbon released as gas into the air, reuse carbon by incorporating it into products that are not burned, recycle durable carbon products, and remove carbon from the air, say, by growing trees.

For a chemical company like SABIC, transitioning to a CCE therefore involves engaging with companies upstream and downstream of its manufacturing facilities to help encourage activities that either reduce, reuse, recycle, or remove carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere.

And it’s precisely in such situations, where companies in multiple industries must come together to establish new businesses or address technological challenges, that intellectual property comes to the fore.

An in-house IP team can be a catalyst that drives innovation and helps facilitate the collaboration that results in the chemical products of a future circular carbon economy

Diderico van Eyl

IP is associated with legal rights that protect proprietary know-how, inventions and other creations of the mind, such as the trademarks that distinguish one company from another. IP can make a big difference to a company’s success in a competitive market. It can also make a big difference to the success of commercial collaborations, like those required in a world transitioning toward a CCE.

Parties that have strong technology positions typically bring the best value to the table and are most likely to engage in such collaborations. So it’s understandable why a technology-depended company would want to have an in-house IP department.

The department would help ensure that the company’s IP portfolio is properly structured to be strategically aligned with its long-term goals. It also can carry out IP due-diligence assessments of potential partners and identify collaborative opportunities early. And it can help to secure the company’s own IP assets and actively manage its portfolio of patents and trademarks.

Patents are an especially important IP asset. Granting certain exclusive rights in the form of a patent to the company that proves to be the first to have invented a novel technology has been shown to stimulate the development of technology. Given the mid-century target date for carbon neutrality, this legal instrument is highly appreciated by a CCE-seeking chemical industry.

Patents also offer a means to license the wider use of a company’s technology and thereby protect the returns on the company’s investments in the technology’s development. And many new technologies will certainly be needed to redirect the flows of carbon along the economy’s value chains — whether through reducing non-renewable energy consumption, recycling of carbon-containing waste, reusing of captured carbon dioxide in durable products or its removal entirely from atmospheric circulation.

Trademarks also offer a company legal IP protection but of a different sort. They help support a company’s brand and protect the company against any misuse of the brand that may create marketplace confusion.

The commercial rights attached to both patents and trademarks are optimally realized in combination. That’s why SABIC’s IP department has worked closely with its Technology & Innovation and Marketing teams to stamp TRUCIRCLE on almost 100 sustainability solutions put together from among its more than 10,000 patents and patent filings.

These sustainability solutions have been assessed with circularity in mind and can include, for example, certified renewable products from bio based feedstock as well as certified circular products made via advanced recycling of used plastics.

In short, an in-house IP team can be a catalyst that drives innovation and helps facilitate the collaboration that results in the chemical products of a future circular carbon economy.

• Diderico van Eyl is senior manager of IP Corporate Programs at SABIC.