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Patents to save the planet?
6 May 2008
Günter Verheugen, Vice President of the European Commission
"The problems relating to climate change can be seen as opportunities for some industrial sectors," Verheugen said. Europe needs a "sustainable industrial policy" and a "sound application of the IP system" to reach a global leadership position when it comes to green technologies, he added.
Verheugen spoke at the European Patent Forum, a two-day event co-organised by the European Patent Office, the government of Slovenia (which currently holds the EU Presidency), the Slovenian IP Office and the European Commission.
The Forum, moderated by Roger Harrabin, the BBC's climate change expert, brought together participants from 45 countries in Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, to discuss how the fields of patenting and IP may support innovations that benefit the environment and counteract climate change.
EPO willing to join the battle
In her opening remarks, President of the EPO Alison Brimelow left no doubt that she was committed to joining the fight against global warming.
"The EPO sees this Forum as a contribution towards strengthening Europe's lead as a shaper of opinion," she said. "If effective climate protection is a political aim of the EU, then the same must apply to its innovation policy and the IP rights that support that policy."
Alison Brimelow
Verheugen indeed saw some spinach, arguing "patent protection ... is cumbersome and costly at present."
"We have an urgent need for a community patent as well as for significantly reduced fees," Verheugen said, praising, however, the recent adoption of the London Protocol, which helps reducing translation costs.
Verheugen, who is also the EU's Industry Commissioner, said he was in favour of fast-tracking green patents, because there is "a lack of time" and climate protection patents are needed as quickly as possible. "If you really want to achieve what we have already decided, then Europe will be and wants to be the frontrunner," he said.
In the United States, being a frontrunner on climate protection means swimming against a government tide - at least that's what Daniel Kammen, a climate change and energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley, and Carl Horton, the chief IP counsel of General Electric, said in their remarks during the morning plenary presentation, where they noted California's and GE's achievements when it comes to climate protection.
"There has been a failure to lead in Washington D.C.," Kammen said.
The patent system is one of the necessary prerequisites to inspire companies to pursue innovation, Horton said, adding he was in favour of keeping the IP system the way it is. "If you force through compulsory licensing, this would have serious consequences."
Clean and dirty growth
Panel discussion
Those first remarks set the ground for the four afternoon breakout sessions, where representatives from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), large corporations, scientific institutions and developing countries discussed the new implications of climate change for their own realities.
Martin Khor, the director of the Third World Network, called for greater dissemination of green knowledge. "The extent to which developing countries will act on climate change depends on what extent they get financing and clean technologies from the developed countries," he said.
Representatives from larger companies were more conservative when it comes to technology sharing - after all, these companies have a shareholder responsibility. Magnus Hallin, CEO of Swedish patent law firm Awapatent AB, was even more direct: "A kind of open-source system is of no good!"
A new deal?
But do we need a new or special patent regime for some of these green technologies?
For Kolja Kuse, head of TechnoCarbon Technologies, a highly innovative medium-sized business from Munich, the answer is ‘yes' - mainly because of the high costs connected to patenting and litigations.
"We need some kind of new deal," to be able to compete in a market in which "only money counts," he said. Albert Zeestraten, a senior official at Shell, countered him in a parallel session, arguing the IP system as it is, "is suitable for all technologies."
These kind of diverse discussions will be continued Wednesday - framed by a keynote address by Yvo de Boer, the UN's top official on climate change.
The forum is being held with the European Inventor of the Year awards 2008, which honour outstanding inventors and a series of groundbreaking innovations that have helped strengthen Europe's IP competitiveness.
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