Patents

Patents are the gold standard for inventions. Theft is avoided by patents turning ideas into intellectual property. The US Patent and Trademark Office grants an invention a 17-year monopoly. The PTO is extremely selective when granting a patent, so it often takes years.

 

A Patent enhances the significance of an invention. The invention must be novel, useful, and unobvious to someone in a related field. I.e., the concepts of a mobile solar/wind farm and it needing brakes are not obvious.  

 

Before filing an application, an inventor must search previous Patents to find out if their idea is unique. Anything relevant is called prior art. If there’s little to no prior art a Patent may be possible. The Railroad Windfarm had minimal prior art.

 

The simple yet complex invention combines several existing technologies in a new way to create a hybrid solar/wind farm on freight railcars with regenerative brakes. A US patent was issued for the solar-assisted railroad-based wind farm aka the Railroad Windfarm in April 2024. 

 

The patent could be very financially rewarding because the Railroad Wind Farm is a technological solution that addresses the global climate change crisis directly. It can be used on any gauge of existing railroad tracks around the world.  

The PTO is very strict about following instructions and meeting deadlines. An inventor must meet certain criteria including using drawings with detailed descriptions that outline how to make the invention. To allow for improvements the PTO explicitly wants no specifications given on an application.  

For example, railcar mounted batteries had 1 kilowatt capacity when the Patent Application was filed. By the time the Patent issued, capacities of railcar mounted batteries had increased a thousand-fold to 1 gigawatt.   

 

The website has the Features, Functions, and Benefits of the 5 railcars featured in the Railroad Windfarm Patent. To see a scale model (without airfoils) check out the Photos. To learn how the technology works check out the Video. For other applications see More Options. Technology has additional info.