The Burden of Intellectual Property Rights On Clean Energy Technologies

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?

Comments

Really?

[king neckbeard]

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:Really?

[TheGratefulNet]

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.

I read the summary

[Mr D from 63]

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.

Re:I read the summary

[ewibble]

All these cases people do can and do:

Would you make a movie if every theater could immediately show it without paying you?

Seen Youtube, people make movies all the time, release them for free. People love to create and show other people.

Would you write a book?

Of course they would, I wouldn't but I don't like writing. If you want to get your opinion across, you would most certainly do it. In fact right now I am writing for free, what about blogs.

People would also pay for it even if they can get it for free, People can go down to the library and read books for free, but somehow they still go out and buy them too.

Would you, as movie theater owner, pay the artist that made a movie, while your neighbouring theater doesn't,

of course, within reason, as long as the viewers are informed for, one movie money goes to the creator and another doesn't. People would be willing to pay a premium for that. You obviously would too since, you think it is unfair not to pay the creator, or are your morals bound only by the law, and not what you think is right. People still buy movies when downloading it is cheaper, and more convenient.

Also, without IP, licenses like the AGPL or even the GPL wouldn't be possible

Without IP they wouldn't be necessary.

I don't necessarily agree we should have no IP at all but 1 or 2 years max on a movie, music is fine. After that if you want more money make another movie. How many movies run for more than a couple of months, in the theater, or have significant DVD sales after 2 years?

All nations got their start ignoring IP rights

[Anonymous Coward]

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

The title is the problem.

[duckintheface]

The title of this post refers to "intellectual property". There is no such thing. There are patents, copyrights, and trademarks. But none of these is property. If they were we would not need a special part of the US Constitution to deal with these things (Article 1, Section 8). Because none of this is "property" it is not covered by property law.

And that's the problem. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks exist to further innovation. They represent a monopoly limited in time and held by the innovator who created the thing that is patentable, copyrightable, or tradmarkable. But when we treat those temporary monopolies as property that can be bought and sold, inherited and used as collateral, we have destroyed the impetus to innovation and replaced it with an impetus to profit even at the peril of innovation.

And so we have the ridiculous spectacle of a copyright extended and extended ... even beyond the lifetime of the innovator. How does a copyright encourage creativity in a dead person? The solution to all of this is simply to return to the original short terms of these monopolies and not to allow property law, buying and selling of rights, to insert it's corrupting hand into the crucible of creativity.

Start using the term Intellectual Monopoly

[trout007]

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.

Re:stop abuses of the patent system, not scrap it

[Jane Q. Public]

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.