The Intellectual Property Institute hosted the sixth of its lectures on the Future of IP in London on Thursday evening. After five presentations from legislators and policy makers, industry was represented for the first time when GE's Chief IP Counsel Carl Horton gave the talk.

Horton kicked off his lecture by outlining what he considered to be the key pressures on the IP system today. He touched on patent quality, the growing backlog, the responsibility of IP owners to self-regulate in terms of their applications, and the need for patent reform. But, he said, one of the biggest threats to IP is coming from the growing anti-IP contingent. After some success with the pharma companies in the access to medicine debate, Horton explained, these groups are now targeting green tech. Calls for compulsory licensing have been increasing over recent months as the meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen gets ever closer. If the IP community doesn't want December's meeting to result in compulsory licensing of green technologies, Horton warned, it's time that it took a stand. Innovation, he claimed, is what will drive down the price point of green tech, something that is critical if we are to achieve widespread adoption of climate-saving technologies. And without IP, where's the incentive to innovate?

Horton's presented a three-step plan to fight the anti-IP threat: 

• Recognise that there is a threat, that it's real and it's growing. 
• Acknowledge that the potential impact of compulsory licensing will be "sweeping and broad based".
• Mobilise against the anti-IP activists by building cross-industry coalitions to deliver a strong IP message.

Engaging in the debate and spreading a positive message about the role IP can and will play in tackling climate change, should it be given the opportunity, is key. "The IP community must show willing to be part of the solution to climate change," stated Horton, "not just shout 'IP's not the problem'."

The IP system as it stands, Horton stated, is working just fine in the BRIC countries where the renewable energy sector is rapidly growing. The challenge now is working out how it can work for the rest of the world. Yet it is BRIC countries such as Brazil, India and China that are leading the calls for some kind of compulsory technology transfer from the developed world. Horton is dubious that these countries, and in particular China, are playing a fair game in the climate change debate. Because global warming is overwhelming considered to be the responsibility of the developed world as it has been these countries that have been heavily using fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, there is understandably some reluctance from the developing world to now play an equal role in fixing the problem, Horton acknowledged, but he went on to say: "China's stance so far in this debate about green technology has been 'what's yours is ours and what's ours is ours." .

You can read more about the IP issues in the climate change debate in the next issue of IAM magazine, published at the end of November.

Sectors

Licensing, IP politics, Patents, IP business

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