[A2k] Financial Times: Move to avert patents clash at climate change meeting

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d8f80e4-6f44-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html

<SNIP>

China, in a submission last year to the UN body handling negotiations
on the accord, called for new rules allowing confiscation of patents
through compulsory licensing of "environmentally sound technologies".

India and Brazil say they want explicit recognition that compulsory
licensing can be used in the interests of mitigating climate change
under World Trade Organisation intellectual property rules, drawing
parallels with a 2001 WTO declaration relating to intellectual
property and public health.

-------

<SNIP>

David Lammy, UK minister for intellectual property, who will speak at
the conference today, says that in addition to more voluntary
licensing of technologies such as solar power and fuel cells, poorer
countries need help to develop their own knowledge base.

Incentives he will mention include cross-national research
collaboration, patent pooling and "licences of right", which cut
patent fees if rights holders agree to license their invention to
anyone requesting it.

-----------



Move to avert patents clash at climate change meeting

By Frances Williams in Geneva

Published: July 13 2009 03:00 | Last updated: July 13 2009 03:00

Efforts to avert a damaging clash between the US and emerging
economies over patents at a climate change meeting this year will top
the agenda at a conference organised by the UN's intellectual property
agency which opens today.

At the G8 summit in Italy last week, China, backed by India and
Brazil, repeated its call for easier access to patented clean energy
technologies in return for signing on to a new global climate change
accord in Copenhagen in December.

China, in a submission last year to the UN body handling negotiations
on the accord, called for new rules allowing confiscation of patents
through compulsory licensing of "environmentally sound technologies".

India and Brazil say they want explicit recognition that compulsory
licensing can be used in the interests of mitigating climate change
under World Trade Organisation intellectual property rules, drawing
parallels with a 2001 WTO declaration relating to intellectual
property and public health.

Alarmed US industry groups, with strong support in the Congress, are
pressing the Obama administration to resist any weakening of patent
protection in the Copenhagen talks, raising fears among environmental
groups that wrangling could scuttle an accord aimed at limiting global
greenhouse gas emissions.

In May, the US Chamber of Commerce launched a Coalition for
Innovation, Employment and Development specifically to lobby for
maintaining strong intellectual property rights in the climate change
and other international negotiations. The coalition argues that
patents, copyright and trademarks are essential to stimulate innovation.

However, more neutral experts, including the World Intellectual
Property Organisation, organiser of the two-day conference on IP and
public policy, say more creative use of the existing system could en-
able a wider spread of clean technologies without re-course to
confiscation of patents.

David Lammy, UK minister for intellectual property, who will speak at
the conference today, says that in addition to more voluntary
licensing of technologies such as solar power and fuel cells, poorer
countries need help to develop their own knowledge base.

Incentives he will mention include cross-national research
collaboration, patent pooling and "licences of right", which cut
patent fees if rights holders agree to license their invention to
anyone requesting it.

With China, the UK is developing model agreements for collaboration on
research and development to ensure the benefits of innovation are both
shared and protected.

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, said earlier this year that
she hoped to explore collaborations between universities in the US and
China "where we can jointly develop intellectual property, where we
can jointly come up with new technologies".

------------------------------------------------------------


Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997