Before laying a pipeline, a developer needs to establish the rights to the land and route it will use.

Technology deserves a comparable discipline. Its ownership and permissions should be understood while the project is being designed, not treated as paperwork to complete after an investment decision.

A clean-energy project may depend on patents, confidential know-how, software rights and contractual permissions. Other elements may be in the public domain or available under open licences. The task is to identify the rights and obligations applying to the intended use, territory and partners (WIPO n.d.b).

At OceanBlocks, the strategic case for treating IP as infrastructure is that it can shape what may be developed, where and on what terms. This article discusses industry principles. It does not disclose proprietary technology or represent that any particular OceanBlocks asset has received legal clearance.

The economic importance of intangible assets

The scale of intangible value is easy to underestimate because so little of it appears in the accounts.

WIPO and Brand Finance estimated corporate intangible asset value at more than US$97 trillion in 2025, up 23 per cent on 2024. The category includes brands, software, data and organisational capabilities as well as intellectual property. It is partly inferred from market valuations, not simply the book value of registered patents (Brown et al. 2026).

The study's comparison with global GDP compares an asset-value stock with an annual output flow. It does not mean that IP generates two-thirds of world GDP, establish a market available to OceanBlocks or value any individual technology. The distinction is important when broad economic statistics are used in an investment narrative (Brown et al. 2026).

For an energy business, the practical lesson is to identify the knowledge and rights that actually support its commercial proposition, rather than borrow a valuation from the size of the wider category.

What the Patent Data Tells Us

Patent statistics are an imperfect but useful early signal of where innovation is heading, because applications are filed well before products reach the market.

An IEA–European Patent Office study published in 2021 examined international patent families in low-carbon energy technologies over 2000–2019. It reported average annual growth of 3.3 per cent in 2017–2019, with enabling technologies such as batteries, hydrogen, smart grids and carbon capture showing particularly strong growth. This is historical innovation evidence, not a current ranking of commercially successful technologies (IEA 2021).

The later hydrogen study examined 2011–2020. The EU accounted for 28 per cent of international patent families in its scope and Japan for 24 per cent, followed by the United States at 20 per cent. Patent applications indicate innovative activity; they do not establish that a technology is operating successfully at commercial scale (EPO and IEA 2023).

The study identified 117 of 391 start-ups with international patent families within its 2011–2020 scope. That group attracted 55 per cent of the measured venture-capital funding. It is a narrower category than all start-ups holding any patent application, and should not be described as if the two groups were identical (EPO and IEA 2023, p.17).

This is an association between patenting and fundraising. It does not show that a patent causes investment success or proves commercial durability.

Rights, know-how and the agreements that connect them

These terms do different jobs. Patents and trade secrets are protection mechanisms. Know-how is knowledge that may be protected. Licences are contractual permissions to use relevant rights or information.

Patents can give their owners rights to prevent specified commercial use of an invention in the territory where protection applies. Protection is generally available for 20 years from the application's filing date, subject to the relevant legal conditions. Territorial scope and continued validity must be checked for the intended use (WIPO n.d.b).

Trade-secret protection concerns confidential information whose commercial value depends on secrecy and that is subject to reasonable protective steps. It can continue while the conditions for protection hold, but generally does not prevent independent development or legitimate reverse engineering (WIPO n.d.a).

Licences can permit use without transferring ownership. The agreement should specify the relevant rights, territory, field of use and other conditions. Licensing know-how requires particular care over what is disclosed and how confidentiality is maintained (WIPO n.d.a; WIPO n.d.b).

Know-how and operating experience can complement patent protection. The fact that one invention is disclosed in a patent does not establish that all the knowledge needed to deploy it is public or included in a licence (WIPO n.d.a).

The strategic question is which combination protects useful value in the intended markets and supports the business model.

The Right to Exclude Is Not the Right to Operate

A patent is not a general permission to operate. Using a patented invention can still engage other parties' rights. Public-domain elements and open licences also need to be distinguished from rights that require separate permission (WIPO n.d.b; WIPO 2024).

That is why freedom to operate matters. WIPO describes freedom-to-operate analysis as evaluating a product or service against patent rights that currently exist, could come into existence or no longer exist. It recommends doing a preliminary review early, updating it at each stage, and having qualified professionals carry out the search and legal analysis before committing to a design (WIPO 2024).

For a developer, freedom to operate is the IP equivalent of a land title search. You do it before you build, not after.

Licensing Is How Technology Crosses Borders

Because patents are territorial (WIPO n.d.b), the global clean energy map is also an IP map. A technology protected in one market may be unprotected in another; a process free to use in one jurisdiction may require a licence in the next.

Licensing can allow an innovator to participate in markets where it does not build or operate a plant itself. For a developer, the value depends on the actual scope of permission, the available know-how and the evidence that the technology is suitable. A licence alone does not establish performance or freedom to operate (WIPO n.d.b; WIPO 2024).

For fast-growing markets, including the Gulf, the opportunity is to become places where technology is not only imported but adapted, improved and, over time, originated.

Questions Every Board Should Ask

IP risk can arise from ownership, documentation and sequencing as well as technical design. A board overseeing a clean-energy business should ask:

  • Do we own, or have clear rights to use, every technology our projects depend on?
  • Have we reviewed freedom to operate in each market we intend to enter?
  • Which knowledge should be patented, and which is better protected as a trade secret?
  • Are our licences clear on territory, field of use, improvements and termination?
  • Would our IP position survive an investor's due diligence tomorrow?

The answers affect the ability to develop, transfer and defend value. They should be supported by documents and appropriate professional review, not by a broad claim that a business 'owns the technology'.

The invisible infrastructure matters because its boundaries determine what the visible infrastructure can lawfully and commercially do.

This article is a general discussion of industry practice and is not legal advice. It contains forward-looking views that may not prove correct.

References

OceanBlocks Insights: Energy, markets and industrial value. Editorial edition 1.1. Figures retain their reporting periods. Forecasts, national targets and historical announcements are distinguished from realised outcomes.