Well, maybe they had good intentions, but the end result sure didn't come together as they planned. In the recent subsea oil well disaster, British Petroleum engineers tested the blowout preventer in response to an operator error the previous day An axial drill bit system was moved while the seal was in a ''closed'' position. This damaged the rubber seal and pieces of that seal came to the top in the mud used for drilling. When the engineers saw that, the tested the blowout preventer with a pressure test - not unlike the one described in this patent. The results: "It's all good!". Unfortunately now, it appears this failure in the testing methodology will lead to the largest (by far; more than 10X the Exxon Valdez disaster) oil disaster ever. Never was a failure most costly than this one.  So, we declare this patent the least useful patent in all of history.  Thanks British Petroleum!

The figure below is Figure 3 from the patent which clearly indicates it is the method used on the DeepWater Horizon – the rig which was destroyed.

In a nutshell, the patent describes an old (prior art) process which requires that one wait until a pressure stabilizes before making a measurement. For many years, this was not a problem – however, now that wells are done in far deeper locations, pressures take a long time to come into equilibrium. For the DeepWater Horizon, a simple test of the blowout preventer too over 8 hours, 7:15 of that was just sitting around waiting for the pressure to stabilize. So inventors Winters and Livesay devised a algorithm which takes into account the expected pressure loss due to cooling of the test medium near the sea floor. By using these algorithms, one can conclude, presumably, that pressure is 'held' for five minutes (required by law 30 CFR ChapII.). They can do this without waiting for pressures to settle to equilibrium.

According to DeepWater Horizon story by Scott Pelly on 60 minutes, the blowout preventer was tested after it was discovered that large rubber chunks, probably the 'annular' test plug were coming out of the bore hole. Certainly, a test was applied – but was it the test described in US patent 7,706,980 – the one designed to hurry the process?.

An argument about finishing the well quickly was put forth by BP – and that involved skipping some precautionary steps. It is sure they were trying to go fast, what is not sure is how good are those algorithms which permit faster pressure testing.

Once a patent has run its course and its term has run - competitors may copy the invention precisely without paying royalties whatever.  This can be severe when it comes to the pharma industry - huge profits come from high drug prices.  Perhaps no other industry so heavily derives such a high percentage of profit from intellectual property.  Once a patent expires, the price of a drug may fall by 10X.  When a blockbuster drug loses its patent protection, profit losses may exceed 2.5 Billion!!!  You can bet these companies do everything possible to defend the precise date a patent will expire.

One important issue which arrises often in regard to Software Patents - prior art.  Most software patents are easy to invalidate because software engineers often say: "Oh gee, that was done by so-and-so many years ago".  But in some cases, the guy who did it first, got the patent, and it is impossible to show that someone actually did it before the patent filing date.  In this case, the patent is upheld. 

Apple continues to search for prior art related to ''cache snooping'' - but for now, they owe about $22 Million.  So long as the patent filing date is the earliest public disclosure of an invention, the patent is rock solid. 

Excellent news for Green Tech inventors: your patents will now get examination priority.  This comes at a time when examinations are very slow in coming and should help increase patent, financial and engineering activity in the Green Tech communities. 

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said: "American competitiveness depends on innovation and innovation depends on creative Americans developing new technology," Locke said in a statement. "Every day an important green tech innovation is hindered from coming to market is another day we harm our planet and another day lost in creating green businesses and green jobs"