Submitted by Professor Dr Fr... on Thu, 08/02/2024 - 19:05
And here comes another soon-to-be IIPM alumni. Congratulations to Maximilian Elsen, who successfully completed his viva on Friday, 26th January. In his research he The title of his PhD thesis is "Inventions in Climate Technologies - A Patent Analysis".
His research addresses the complexities involved in identifying and classifying climate technologies from patent data, while acknowledging the inherent limitations and specific characteristics associated with patent data. By reviewing available means for identifying climate technology patents, his research examines advantageous features of existing classification schemes and discusses present challenges. It identifies the Cooperative Patent Classification Y02 class as the most comprehensive patent classification scheme for climate technologies, owing to its cross-sectional and hierarchical structure. Based on the Y02 class, this research constructs a dataset of global high-value patented inventions in climate technologies and conducts three studies: The first study (i) investigates patent applications in climate technologies between 1980 and 2019 and critically evaluates them compared to their non-climate related counterparts. The second study (ii) examines contributions from inventors in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) to the development of climate change adaptation technologies. The third study (iii) develops metrics to assess the contribution of organisations towards the development of climate technologies based on their patent portfolios.
Catalina Martinez kindly agreed to act as external examiner. The internal examiner was Steve Evans.