Stotser’s just mad the oceans aren’t in there.

Nearly a decade later, however, the Green Technology Pilot Program was replaced with the “Climate Change Mitigation Program” in 2022.104 The USPTO expanded the Climate Change Mitigation Program in 2023 to allow “qualifying applications involving technologies that reduce, remove, prevent, and/or monitor greenhouse gas emission [to] be advanced out of turn (made special),” similar to its predecessor. 105 Notably, to qualify under the Climate Change Mitigation Program, “[a]pplications must contain … claims to a product or process that mitigates climate change by being designed to: (a) remove greenhouse gases already present in the atmosphere; (b) reduce and/or prevent additional greenhouse gas emissions; and/or (c) monitor, track, and/or verify greenhouse gas emission reductions.” 106

It is not entirely clear whether ocean plastic remediation technologies would qualify for accelerated examination under the definitions provided. Arguably, the USPTO’s repeated emphasis on “greenhouse gas” suggests a preference for technologies that directly interact with the carbon cycle or influence the processes of energy production and consumption.107 Examples such as renewable energy sources (e.g., solar, wind, hydroelectric power) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) methods may align more closely with technologies “designed to … reduce and/or prevent additional greenhouse gas emissions” as compared to ocean plastic remediation innovations which, while critically important for marine health and capable of indirectly influencing lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions through the reduction of plastic degradation, for example,108 typically do not directly address the sources of greenhouse gas emissions or their sequestration from the atmosphere.109 This distinction may place ocean plastic remediation outside the primary scope of the USPTO’s Climate Change Mitigation Program and limit its effectiveness in encouraging such innovations.