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Cquestrate needs legal advice
There are two exciting and innovative legal aspects to Cquestrate. The first is the creation of an ‘anti-patent’ space around the project to allow unfettered development. This has been done before in other areas such as software development (Linux being a shining example) but, as far as we know, never in a chemical, industrial or environmental area.
The second is the challenge of addressing environmental regulations that didn’t forsee introducing large quantities of chemicals to the oceans as being beneficial.
The questions
We believe the questions around intellectual property are pretty much answered. However, the environmental law issues are trickier. We need to know:
- What legislation (whether it be international, EU/a similar organisation or national) prevents large quantities of chemicals (calcium oxide and/or calcium hydroxide) being added to the oceans?
- What steps have been taken to relax those laws to allow the addition chemicals that would have a beneficial effect?
What we need
We’ve contacted some excellent lawyers who have provided a quote for their services in answering these questions. Unfortunately Cquestrate’s initial funding (provided by Shell) won’t cover this cost.
We are looking for:
- An environmental lawyer or team of lawyers; and/or
- A pro bono group who are concerned with climate change/the environment
to take this on as a pro bono opportunity to be conducted in the open-source spirit that Cquestrate has adopted. We can only offer recognition as a valuable contributor to a project that may just address one of the biggest challenges of our time.
If you’d like to be a part of this project please contact us at contact@cquestrate.com.
Also, f you know anyone who could help us, please ask them to get in touch with us.
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Legal Considerations
The process needs to operate within the bounds of the law. There main considerations are:
Intellectual Property
Cquestrate seeks to create an ‘anti-patent’ space around this process by open sourcing the solutions – how can this be made to work most effectively, so that no-one can obtain a patent that could effectively hold the process to ransom?
Environmental Regulation (especially regarding International Law)
The Cquestrate process involves adding large amounts of chemicals to seawater. We need to know what legislation currently prevents this from happening and what steps have been taken to relax the law to permit the addition of beneficial chemicals.
If you can help to answer these questions, even if you don’t have the whole solution, please use the comment box to tell us what you know.
Nobody has left a comment so far, why not join in the discussion?