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The Burden of Intellectual Property Rights On Clean Energy Technologies 145

Posted by samzenpus from the getting-the-money dept.
Lasrick writes If climate change is to be addressed effectively in the long run, nations of all descriptions must pursue mitigation and adaptation strategies. But poor countries face a potential hurdle when it comes to clean-energy technologies—most of the relevant intellectual property is held in the rich world. Many observers argue that it's unfair and unrealistic to expect massive energy transformations in the developing world unless special allowances are made. Yet intellectual property rights are intended in part to spur the very innovation on which climate mitigation depends. This article is the first post in a roundtable that debates this question: In developing countries, how great an impediment to the growth of low-carbon energy systems does the global intellectual property rights regime represent, and how could the burdens for poor countries be reduced?
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The Burden of Intellectual Property Rights On Clean Energy Technologies More

The Burden of Intellectual Property Rights On Clean Energy Technologies

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  • Really? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by king neckbeard ( 1801738 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @05:57PM (#49082545)

    Yet intellectual property rights are intended in part to spur the very innovation on which climate mitigation depends.

    Is anybody even pretending that patents exist anymore for anything other than lining corporate and lawyer pockets? Just tell them to piss off because the planet is more important.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just tell them to piss off because the planet is more important.

      India's Solution To Drug Costs: Ignore Patents And Control Prices - Except For Home Grown Drugs [forbes.com]

      So, all some poor country has to do is just go ignore IP rights - there' s not a fucking thing the owners can do about it.

      • The issue is that if those rights are ignored, trade might be restricted, and not having trade with large chunks of the world can be devastating.

        • Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @06:48PM (#49082913)

          but if EVERYONE (every country) would ignore monsanto, for example, and shun them (it would be hard for a while, admittedly) then the war on IP/food would be won.

          being bullied by the giants lets the giants continue to own you. the countries continue to allow themselves to be bullied. no one takes the risk. so everyone is 'owned', now.

          • Would you prefer that Monsanto didn't try to improve the food supply? Monsanto dumped tons of money into developing something, do you believe that they shouldn't be repaid for what they did?

            What incentive would any company have to develop things if they weren't guaranteed a monopoly on what they invented? If you can take a couple thousand dollars and reproduce what took them millions to develop, should you be able to sell the same product?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          The laws already exist in most countries to ignore patents. They are generally tied to military uses, no you can not patent you gun and expect other countries to ignore the gun because you wont licence the patent to them, they just override the patent for military applications. Military style patents are basically limited to the country of origin and every other country basically ignores them. So yeah, just twist around the clean energy technologies as having military applications and you can legally ignor

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          You mean no more offshoring to India and China? Fat chance.

      • So, all some poor country has to do is just go ignore IP rights - there' s not a fucking thing the owners can do about it.

        Sadly that's not so. Because of TRIPS, the poor country will be excluded from the WTO framework should it fail to honour intellectual "property" laws.

        A case in point India [wikipedia.org]. They've been forced to back down on their position on pharmaceutical patents outlined in the (now out of date) article you cite.

    • Is anybody even pretending that patents exist anymore for anything other than lining corporate and lawyer pockets? Just tell them to piss off because the planet is more important.

      I have several things to say about the assumptions behind that comment.

      I have grown really weary of this attitude that just because certain people are abusing the system, then the system itself is bad. That's a wrong-headed and dangerous approach to problem solving. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as the saying goes.

      Example: since Obama has been a horrible President, does that mean we should eliminate Presidents altogether?

      Since many big corporations today have been shown to be corrupt, s

      • What we really need to do is sit down and talk about whether we merely need to stop abuses of the patent system, or need to scrap it altogether and in the meantime do what we can to stop the most egregous abuses of the system. We also need to sit down and have the same talk about the economic system in general.

        http://www.theguardian.com/new... [theguardian.com]

        • Re:stop abuses of the patent system, not scrap it (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Jane Q. Public ( 1010737 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @11:22PM (#49084409)

          What we really need to do is sit down and talk about whether we merely need to stop abuses of the patent system, or need to scrap it altogether and in the meantime do what we can to stop the most egregous abuses of the system.

          I disagree. Historically, our patent system worked very well. The vast majority of patent abuse and trolling has been relatively recent, and in fact was nowhere near this level 20 years ago. The problems have gone hand-in-hand with the recent crony capitalism and government revolving doors. That is, I suspect they share the same root causes.

          When something works pretty much fine for 200 years, then doesn't work good for 20 years, it isn't very helpful to ask what's wrong with the system that worked RIGHT for all that time. Rather, the thing to do is ask what went WRONG in recent years.

          Hint: it wasn't "the system". The system is pretty much the same as it has always been.

          • So all the wars they taught us about didn't happen? And that slavery thing was part of the system too. No the system did not work "just about fine" for 200 years. Sorry, but attempting to look at the patent system in isolation doesn't work. But even there, I am reminded of the situation between Elisha Grey and Alexander Graham Bell. Elisha Grey couldn't file a patent on a similar system because Bell got there a little bit earlier. Perhaps neither of them should have gotten the patent because if two people c

      • Even if we could fix the patent system to stop allowing for bad patents to be created someone would have to go through and challenge all the existing shitty ones. That would take years and that would be IF there were a budget for it. Expecting inventors to do it by challenging them in court isn't going to help because it is too expensive. Meanwhile technological progress is at a crawl compared to what it should be. Even if cleaning of the existing system began today all present would be too old to enjoy t

        • Even if we could fix the patent system to stop allowing for bad patents to be created someone would have to go through and challenge all the existing shitty ones.

          That's really beside the point, as they would have to do that no matter what else you did.

      • I have grown really weary of this attitude that just because certain people are abusing the system, then the system itself is bad. That's a wrong-headed and dangerous approach to problem solving. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater, as the saying goes.

        Which 'system' are you talking about? The patent system, or the larger military-industrial corporocratic political system which has undermined, perverted, and co-opted the patent system, (along with so many other things), in a manner which probably has its founders spinning in their graves?

        Since many big corporations today have been shown to be corrupt, should we get rid of corporations?

        That may be necessary in the short term as the only means to counter the massive power they have usurped. Yes, we need corporations - but they need to be society's servants, not its masters as they are now.

        It's a people problem, not a system problem.

        No, it's defini

      • The problems we are experiencing means there are problems with the way systems are being RUN, not with how they're SUPPOSED TO be run. It's a people problem, not a system problem.

        So basically, judge systems by their propaganda, not actual results?

    • lots of it, I own the sun.

      • Excellent. Your property has caused injury to me and many others, now that the owner has been identified you can expect a class action lawsuit.

  • I read the summary (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @05:59PM (#49082559)
    I read the summary and thought "wow, this is really stupid". Then I read the article......and confirmed that thought.

    A bunch of generalizations and false arguments....."Defenders of intellectual property rights argue that....". No, they don't necessarily make those arguments.

  • All nations got their start ignoring IP rights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @06:03PM (#49082579)

    The early United States ignored patents issued abroad once upon a time...

  • "we have to kill batm^Hmonsanto."

    they stand in the way of world progress. fight a war with THEM, then maybe the world can have a chance to feed all its people.

    every time I think of monsanto, I get really angry. dammit.

  • The IP is right where it is needed. (Score:3)

    by excelsior_gr ( 969383 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @06:17PM (#49082659)

    Given that China, the US and the EU are together responsible for more than 50% of the worldwide CO2 emissions, I would expect that the Intellectual Property to combat climate change is right where it is needed. Saying that taking action against climate change is hurdled by poor countries not having the intellectual rights to the necessary technology silently suggests that poor countries are part of the climate change problem, which is absolutely not true.

    I've heard a lot of lame excuses on why nothing is being done concerning climate change, but whoever thought of this one deserves a cookie.

    • Given that the US, EU and soon even China outsource most manufacturing to 3rd world countries, yes it is a problem and if it isn't it will soon be. There is a reason the US ceased manufacturing and it wasn't due entirely to a cheaper labor pool. A lion share was probably due to more lax requirements in production and emissions from production.

    • Well, more than 50% yes. It does not contradict the fact that it more than 75% or even 85% :D

      The only two countries that have a significant impact beyond USA/EU/China are India and Indonesia.

    • Yeah, and even then, patents are not even close to the primary limiting factor in the adoption of clean energy technologies.....
  • Africa is a very energy rich continent. The UN, Wold Bank, IEA have all given billions to the governments of these countries for "green energy projects". The majority of the monies have been stolen. Government corruption is the largest hurdle to development in Africa. From the IEA report released October 2014, "Africa has long been plagued by the resource curse, where abundant oil, gas and minerals in places like Equatorial Guinea or the Republic of Congo have made a select few rich, led to widespread corr

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If intellectual property is indeed property, I believe it is about time we tax whoever owns it like any other valuable property.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      So... let me see if I have this right... the problem is that the oil companies bribe the government for access to oil and then the people they didn't bribe (i.e. most everyone except a few in power) "steal" their own oil. Sounds good to me.

  • But poor countries face a potential hurdle when it comes to clean-energy technologies—most of the relevant intellectual property is held in the rich world

    Whenever you want something that others own, you "face a potential hurdle". It matters little, whether it is tangible item like bicycle, or something, that's harder to design than to manufacture (like intellectual property).

    Fortunately, these particular things — unlike, say, medicines — the poor can really do without. Because the science

    • Why Peak oil has peaked, what six times now? There's one that keeps happening! Sorry I don't have any links, but it's common knowledge!

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It peaked in Texas in the 1980's.

        It has passed peak for nearly a decade so far.

        Peak oil is when supply loses its elasticity because it's all hard to exploit remnants. Think of the last bit of ketchup in the bottle. When the bottle was new, it was easy to get a nice dollop out on your dinner, just tip and shake a bit. Then you had to start to smack the bottle, but it was still easy to get a decent dollop. When it's mostly empty, you can STILL get a full measure of what you want out of it, but you're now look

        • Wow....a coherent analogy that wasn't about cars on /.

          I am shocked. Also, the "frantic hand-job" part was quite a humorous yet accurate metaphor as well. Are you sure you arnn't from an alternate reality or something?

          • The UK. (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            We do dry (sarcastic) wit well.

            Makes up for having too dirty a sense of humour generally.

            To smaddox, fracking is the "Frantic hand job" stage.

            If it were not expensive to do, then it would have been done in the 1970's and 80's in the USA. Peak oil had to jack the price up significantly before horizontal drilling became economic, and fracking is still not returning any useful economic benefit except to those who pumped the idea up, got VC and got out before drilling started. It had nothing to do with perfecti

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by smaddox ( 928261 )

          Your analogy has an issue: traditional drilling can only extract a small fraction ( 5%) of the oil from a field, and only from a specific, relatively rare type of field. The combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing makes extracting oil from shale (a porous but low permeability rock) both economical and extremely effective. I'm not a petroleum engineer, but my understanding is that the perfection of these techniques has started a revolution in oil and gas production, and that traditional o

        • There is oil shale, and deep water drilling. BP should have listened to the engineering firm about the stress cracks, and never have been allowed to use 'toxic soap' to disperse the oil, so that no one would see the slick. It would have been much better to allow the slick to form, and then recover it with the 'plastic rope' method or the like.

          Peak oil is flawed, because it ignores all of the additional recovery methods available, that weren't economic to begin with. Cost for oil will go up anyway due to

      • Ugo Bardi at his Resource Crisis blog has a commentary on peak oil [blogspot.com] and the exploitation of unconventional sources. Bardi has done a number of posts lately on what he calls the Seneca Cliff. [blogspot.it] The name comes from a quote from the Roman Seneca:

        "It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid." Lucius Anneaus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, n. 91

        It's all pretty interesting and indicates our civilization is in for a hard fall in the not too distant future. It makes me glad I'm over 60 years old and probably won't have to face the worst of it.

    • Anybody attempting to make a retort here, is politely requested to cite (include links to) at least two past global-warming predictions, that have actually materialized...

      Well, two obvious ones are that sea level continues to rise and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.

      Maybe you should be specific about what predictions you think haven't materialized. I'm guessing you either missed out on the time scales attached to those predictions or you're thinking of some twisted version of a prediction that was taken out of context. That said there are occasional poor statements by scientists but they aren't enough to overturn the vast majority of well considered statements.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        Well, two obvious ones are that sea level continues to rise and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.

        Links, please. Not just unsubstantiated — and thus unverifiable — claims

        Maybe you should be specific about what predictions you think haven't materialized.

        I am unaware of anything materializing. Anything that could be perceived and objectively measured. If you are aware of any such, you are withholding evidence...

        • Sea level rise. [colorado.edu]
          Antarctic ice sheet mass balance. [antarcticglaciers.org]
          Greenland ice sheet mass balance. [google.com] (PDF)
          World wide glacier facts and figures. [grid.unep.ch]

          Unless you're willing to specifically name something they got wrong how can I evaluate your claim that the predictions haven't materialized?

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by mi ( 197448 )

            Let me try to repeat the request I made once again... I asked for series of pairs. The first element of each pair would be a link to a prediction — that something quantifiable will happen to climate or some aspect of Earth. The second element would point at confirmation, that the earlier prediction materialized (within, say, 80% of the predicted value). Can you offer two such pairs?

            To be useful, the prediction should predate its materialization by, say, 5 years minimum...

            For example, the "Sea level

            • Ah, I see. You want me to do all the work while you sit there waving your hands claiming it's all wrong. It's easy to sit back and pick nits. Maybe I'll have some time tonight to dig in to it.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by mi ( 197448 )

                Ah, I see. You want me to do all the work

                Why, but of course, the burden of proof is on those, who make claims. If you wish for the rest of society to "fight global warming" in general, or to force patent-holders to share certain "green" technologies with the poor countries in particular, you have to show, your scientific theory is sound.

                Because, whichever science it is (biology, physics, chemistry, climate), the method is the same:

                1. Collect known facts.
                2. Come up with a theory explaining them.
                3. Use that theory t

                • Ok, here a Real Climate post on Sea Level in the 5th IPCC Report [realclimate.org]. Figure 3a compares model projections of sea level rise to observations and since the 1950s the observations have been consistently above the mode projections. At the bottom of the post are references to the scientific papers the information was gleaned from. In each IPCC report since the second the sea level predictions have been higher than in the previous report and yet observations continue to be higher still. I guess you may classify

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by mi ( 197448 )

                    In each IPCC report since the second the sea level predictions have been higher than in the previous report and yet observations continue to be higher still.

                    Citations? Didn't think so...

                    Enough for now.

                    You responded to a request for two or more pairs of links with exactly one and call that "enough"? Sorry, no. Fail.

                    • Like I said why should I do your work for you? The citations are the IPCC reports. They're available online. Look it up yourself.

                    • Ok, here's another Real Climate post [realclimate.org] on comparisons between model projections and observations. In particular I direct your attention to this graph of Arctic sea ice models vs. observations. [realclimate.org]

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by mi ( 197448 )

                      Like I said why should I do your work for you?

                      Because you chose to respond to my challenge.

                      The citations are the IPCC reports. They're available online.

                      My challenge stands. Three people chose to respond (you and two ACs) — and none of you could complete, what all of you claim to be not only possible, but easy.

                      By this time some doubts should be (better be!) rising in your head, by the way: "Just why is it, that this jerk's taunting challenge is so hard?" Why aren't there — decades after Global W

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by mi ( 197448 )

                      I don't know, if you sincerely don't understand my request, or are trying to weasel out without losing face (too much).

                      Here it is again: please, post pairs of links. The first link in each pair shall point to a quantifiable prediction, the second — to its materialization within 80% of the predicted quantity.

                      In particular I direct your attention to this graph of Arctic sea ice models vs. observations.

                      That chart [realclimate.org] references some predictions without links. The dramatic bold red line on it begins in 1950

                    • God you need a lot of hand holding don't you?

                      The legend in the sea ice graph refers to the studies they come from. For instance "GISS AOM" refers to the GISS Fast Atmosphere Ocean model. [nasa.gov] The predictions cover from 1900 to 2100 and the bold red line is what the actual observations show. They start in 1950 presumable because observations before then are too spotty to be very useful in this context. The bold black line is the ensemble mean of the different predictions. The chart is only about Arctic sea i

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by mi ( 197448 )

                      God you need a lot of hand holding don't you?

                      All I asked for was two (at least) pairs of links. As in:

                      1. link to prediction -> link to materialization
                      2. link to prediction -> link to materialization

                      And you could not do it...

                      As the future unfolds

                      That's the thing! We are living in the future of the people, who were debating these very things 10-20-30-40 years ago. Their future has already unfolded and what do we see? None of the predictions made back then have materialized — at least, nothing convinc

                    • Oh, poor baby. You can't always get what you want.

                      I gave you two examples, sea level rise and Arctic sea ice with plenty of information in the posts I cited for you to dig deeper if you cared to. At this point I'm doubting you have the scientific skills to do that and to understand what was said in the papers even of you read them. Hence your desire to have it all presented to you on a silver platter.

                      So, the alarmists of the past were wrong.

                      That's quite a leap to assume they are wrong just because I, a lowly SysAdmin can't satisfy your desire f

  • Africa would benefit little from free IP since it mostly lacks the means to manufacture sophisticated technology. Africa makes use of clean energy technology the same way the use other technology. They buy it already manufactured from more advanced regions. No patent license is required to deploy a solar array.

    China could manufacture. But China also has the resources to license the IP and they own IP themselves. Would free IP allow China to deploy clean energy technology faster? A little. But mostly

  • Short of abolition (the best solution), use eminent domain, like some countries are finally doing with big pharma.

  • For those of you worried about patent filings in poor countries, here's a bit of an anecdote.

    I'm the inventor of a technology that resulted in a product that captured 99% of the market worldwide and sales of over a billion dollars a year. Did it while working for a large multinational, so didn't get but a couple thousand dollars as a bonus.

    When deciding where to patent, the decision was US, Europe, Japan, and a couple other countries. BRICS weren't even a consideration. It costs a crap-ton of money to fi

  • Start using the term Intellectual Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by trout007 ( 975317 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @08:13PM (#49083505)

    Because that is what it really is. Intellectual Monopoly is not compatible with property rights. You either own your property and are free to transform it and sell it or you don't own it. Someone saying I can't configure my property is only possible with a government granted monopoly and has no basis in property rights.

  • Couldn't poor countrys simply ignore intelectual property rights? Don't they have sovergnty? Is this a stupid question?
  • How will industrialized nations cope when they finally realize that the least of us will have to go as well as the highest among us if the world is to survive? Sort of biblical isn't it?
  • The learning curve on renewable energy technology (which generates new IP) is very favorable to bringing costs down. IP would seem to be working the way it should in this case. We will be seeing increased prosperity as energy costs decline. This seem different from healthcare, where IP costs seem to be eating up economic vitality. For a large scale renewable energy industry, entering emerging markets at low cost and rapidly, it does not seem like IP costs are much of a burden and are acting more as a be

  • Why doesn't the IP/patents of the industrialized world matter to poorer nations? The answer in one word: jurisdiction. A U.S. patent won't stop anyone from practicing or importing an invention in any other country, so long as those activities are done entirely outside of the U.S. (Replace "U.S" with any other country or region and you have the same thing.) The article just touched on the possibility that technology might be stopped in the developing world IF it was not possible to build the potentially-infr

    • Unless there is a component part that is (1) essential to a patented product or method, (2) must be exclusively manufactured in the places where it is patented, and (3) has no non-infringing uses, then this theoretical IP won't stop the technology from being built and developed in the third world.

      High efficiency solar panels (>40%) suffer from all three of those issues. They are made of high efficiency solar cells, which are patented. The panel can not exist without the cell. The cells are exclusively manufactured in places where it is patented (so far), and the cells have no non-infringing uses. They can be used to convert light to electricity, and aren't good for much of anything else.

      That's the sole example of any significance—nobody gives a shit about the patented super-water-effici

      • Addressing your answer to these elements in order:

        1- Lower efficiency cells can be used, it just takes more cells to produce the same output.
        2- There is nothing stopping an under-developed country from making their own solar cells. They are basically glass with thin films of material deposited thereon.
        3- Even if these films require the use of rare earth materials, glass and those materials cannot be patented. Build the plant in the under-developed country, import the materials and make as many cells as yo

  • The impact of TRIPS on Third World economies .. (Score:3)

    by lippydude ( 3635849 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @09:31PM (#49083849)
    "in many developing countries, there is strong suspicion that the TRIPS Agreement is a component of a policy of technological protectionism intended at consolidating an international division of labor where the industrialized nations generate innovations and developing countries are the market for the resulting products ."

    The Global Politics of Intellectual Property Rights and Pharmaceutical Drug Policies in Developing Countries [utoronto.ca]

  • TFS tells about "global intellectual property rights regime", which is a nonsense: there is no international patents, as a patent is only granted within a national juridiction (EU is the exception). And even huge corporations do not fill in 180 countries, they do it only where they intend to make money.

  • They're sovereign nations and can defined their own laws.
    All they need to do is change their own laws to benefit their own country.

  • When I think of invention or innovation anymore, I liken it to life on the Serengeti. Only a few watering holes remain and all the predators are lying in wait for anyone who dares get too close.

    Besides, patents, copyrights, Intellectual Property, etc. are all first world ( read that RICH ) problems.

    Does anyone think for a moment that a developing nation gives two sh*ts about patents, IP or what the laws are in ~195 other countries around the globe ? ( Hint: The answer is no. )

  • ... that the current economic system is not providing the most efficient distribution of goods and services for the benefit of all?

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