Bottle Recycling...

The widely acknowledged bottle shortages with which the breweries have to contend has not only prompted some to set up their own bottling manufacturing facilities, but inspired other enterprises to exploit the general market mayhem and the lack of standard legal and commercial instruments that are taken for granted in western economies.

Having filed a patent application for glass vessels, Moscow-based Intellekt can, according to Rospatent, lay claim to a payment for each of the millions of bottles circulating in Russia. Intellekt presented the standard bottle as something infinitely more complex, its detailed geometry and consideration of relative thickness of glass at various points sufficed to provide enough obfuscation to be granted a patent. According to the company, any old beer bottle fits the description. It is reported to have written to all the major breweries demanding 0.5% of their profits as royalties for the use of patented glass vessels.

Concise Consumer