Singularity Law

A few days from now I will be co-chairing a conference on “clean tech law.” Many people who have known me for years have been curious as to why I would be organizing a conference in a “new” area of law. The fact is that while clean technology (solar, wind, biofuels) is a new area of technology, much of the law that applies to this area is not new at all.

Much of the technology underlying clean tech is patented and licensed like any other technology. The licensing skills that lawyers have developed for other fields of patent licensing are equally applicable to clean tech.

Similarly, much of the money being invested in the development of clean tech is venture capital money, and the deals involving clean tech companies are not significantly different from those done in the IT industry. Indeed, many of the VC companies and lawyers who have worked for decades in the IT venture capital area are also working in the clean tech field today.

The same is true for corporate law, securities law, employment law, etc. The fact is, most of the laws that apply to an Internet company also apply to a clean tech company.

Another force that is moving IT lawyers into the clean tech area is the fact that many of their larger clients have huge server farms, which use enormous amounts of electricity and generate large amounts of heat. These companies realize that if they are not proactive in moving to clean technology for electricity generation, they will be targeted by politicians and activists who are concerning about greenhouse gases and global warming. These companies see the necessity of investing in clean tech – both in developing their own technologies and in utilizing other people’s technologies to deal with these problems. Their lawyers increasingly are being asked to provide them with legal counsel as they move into the clean tech area.

That is not to say that there will be a lessening of developments in the IT law area. But it is clear that technology lawyers are expanding their expertise into legal areas that a decade ago they probably never thought they would be involved in. Never a dull moment!!