wortha a read, page-6

Troydt - Presumably the environmental permitting requires that the patents have actually been awarded to the applicant ? Otherwise, the permitting would be getting assessed on a process/idea that would not have been legally confirmed as having an "inventive step" compared to prior art. Its easy to lodge a provisional patent, but it takes years to get it granted as a full patent by the agencies, especially if it gets lodged in other domains (USA/Europe etc). I know, I've done a few. And it ain't cheap.

All IMHO, DYOR