HT: Slashdot

PatentlyO, a blog that discusses patent law, has an article about a Halliburton patent application that patents methods for someone to get a patent even though someone else did the research.

The purpose does seem funny, but I wonder if we have some people in our law department that remember the fiasco regarding foam fracturing.

Halliburton was the first in the oilfield services industry to offer foam fracturing service. Instead of fracturing with just liquid, we introduce either nitrogen or carbon dioxide gas to generate bubbles and reduce the amount of water used to flood the formation. Foam fracturing is particularly useful in water-sensitive and low pressure lithologies. Most foams I pumped in Duncan ran around 65-70% gas (v/v).

As I was told by my first boss, HAL has the patent to pump foam fluids with 42% or greater of nitrogen gas or carbon dioxide gas. Our competition figured out a way around our patent, by pumping foams with two gases, each less than 42%. Thus we couldn’t keep a total lock on the foam fracturing market.

Fortunately for us single foam technology is superior: there’s less equipment, less complexity in the foam design, and greater ability to design the foam for what it is supposed to do.