3/19/11

Why I'm letting "elpipe" go into public lexicon (no trademark)

I want to be clear that it is no accident that I am letting "elpipe" become a word rather than trying to trademark it.

People are tired of seeing [tm] after the name of a thing...I certainly am! Why does Siemens say "GIL" (gas insulated line) and AZZ Technologies (another supplier) refer to "CGIT" (compressed gas insulation technology)? Branding, of course! I think this sort of commercial lexicon is inefficient for the market.

I believe my patents will have validity, and that I or my successors will have legal control of this technology provided that we raise enough money to prosecute the national phase patents effectively. I will engender competition for parts of the elpipe design, such as the conduit and the segment modules in particular, through low rate, non-exclusive licensing deals, while controlling the vital (but smaller) splice modules. By commoditizing large portions of the project, the price of elpipes will be low enough to allow EPC a healthy margin on the splice modules, while still delivering favorable economics for the customer.

Note added September 5, 2018:
It is of course a done deal now. I never really liked the term elpipe very much, but it is useful to differentiate from other kinds of electric pipelines, such as the gas insulated lines mentioned above, or even superconducting lines which are in the general sense also electric pipelines. I want to keep the phrase electric pipeline to mean any one of these methods; it needs to be able to be put underground. I also propose reserving this term for designs based on non-flexible Conductors to differentiate it from cables.

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