Conference on Intellectual Property Rights
and Technology Transfer
in the U.N. Climate Negotiations

October 26-27, 2009
University of California, Berkeley

Agenda

Location: Sutardja Dai Hall, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), UC Berkeley.

Program Summary

Overview

The Center for Environmental Public Policy is convening a conference about one of the key stumbling blocks in the U.N. climate negotiations – the debate over the role of intellectual property rights in the transfer of emissions-reducing technologies to developing nations.

The chief intent of this program is to facilitate expert discussion among clean tech stakeholders with the aim of preventing a negotiating impasse and controversy over IPR issues at the climate negotiations. The Copenhagen summit in December 2009 has the daunting task of drawing up a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, yet the chances of an agreement are increasingly slim. An unsuccessful summit outcome would likely cause increasingly acrimonious debate in the United States and worldwide about the role of clean technologies in a new climate treaty – how much, who pays, and who owns the intellectual property.

At stake is nothing less than the next stage of the world’s clean-tech revolution. The creation of a transparent, stable climate agreement on IPR and clean-tech R&D could open new markets in developing nations, protect patent rights and stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation by the clean-tech industry in wealthy and poor nations alike. A successful, well-designed agreement could provide security and transparency to scientists, entrepreneurs and corporations and thus encourage the creation, financing and deployment of new emissions-reducing inventions. In effect, a new climate pact could be a “green Doha Round,” a clean-tech version of the long-delayed agreement at the World Trade Organization. However, the failure to agree on a successor climate treaty could spark international acrimony and new trade barriers.

In large part, the tech transfer discussions in the U.N. climate talks have been hobbled by an expertise gap. The legal and economic issues that must be navigated are highly complex, yet the governments-only format of the U.N.-supervised negotiations does not allow participation by the clean-tech industry and its legal advisers. As a result, those with most detailed knowledge of IPR issues are largely unable to dialogue with the developing nations that are demanding new initiatives at the negotiating table.

Our conference is intended to bridge that gap and to create an incubator for expert dialogue and consensus building. It will bring clean-tech firms and their legal counsel to the same table as experts from developing nations, Berkeley School of Law, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and specialized international NGOs. Our program will focus on the IPR aspect of technology transfer and will not address the financing of tech transfer, a topic that is a major issue unto itself and is receiving sufficient attention in other international venues.

Background

The tech transfer issue has emerged in recent months as one of the most contentious issues at the U.N. climate talks. Developing nations, led by the G-77 and China, are proposing a wide-ranging system to allow poorer nations to adapt to global warming and limit their own emissions. To date, much of the tech transfer discussion has centered on the means of financing this process, either through the proposal by the G-77 and China for a multi-billion-dollar fund and/or through wealthy nations’ desire to provide some financing through a cap-and-trade system and through voluntary contributions to an international climate fund. But the other side of tech transfer is an equally contentious challenge – how to protect IPR and stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation while simultaneously facilitating clean tech deployment in poor nations.

The G-77/China proposal includes the demand for a system akin to the one created by the 2001 Doha Declaration on drugs for AIDS and malaria, which expanded WTO member states’ ability under the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) to engage in practices such as compulsory licensing for life-saving medicines. In response to this pressure, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 432-0 in June 2009 to oppose any concessions at Copenhagen that would weaken the intellectual property rights of American green technology.

The results of the most recent UNFCCC preparatory negotiations in Bangkok, Sept. 28-Oct. 9, have caused deep concern among the clean tech industry and its U.S. supporters. The diplomatic subgroup on tech transfer, the Contact Group on Enhanced Action on Development and Transfer of Technology, released a “white paper” summarizing the various negotiating positions. Several clauses authored by G77 nations called for compulsory licensing of clean technology, thus showing that the North-South divide on IPR remains deep and wide after many months of diplomatic wrangling.

As a result, the stage is set for bitter acrimony at Copenhagen over IPR, creating a dichotomy of private property versus planetary survival that could sully the image of the clean tech industry and do major damage to the U.N. climate talks.

Our conference will try to find innovative ways around this IPR blockage, in part by aggressively exploring the potential for international collaborative R&D. The most authoritative recent research on the dispute, such as Who Owns Our Low-Carbon Future?, by Chatham House (September 2009), recommends the expansion of a wide variety of bilateral and multilateral RD&D-related programs, including joint venture companies, cross-training programs, cross-licensing arrangements, multilateral R&D cooperation agreements, publicly backed energy patent pools and knowledge sharing platforms, and a global database on licensing data and best practices.

A related framework is India’s “CleanNet” proposal for the creation of an international network of clean tech RD&D centers for developing nations and Least Developed Countries. India’s proposal, which has received support from many G77 nations, cites as a precedent the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an institution created by the World Bank and United Nations in the early 1970s that now includes 15 international crop research centers.

Closer to home, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is a pioneer in international R&D collaboration on energy efficiency, especially with China and India.

Our conference will explore these examples and discuss policy alternatives that can help defuse the controversy over IPR in Copenhagen and beyond.

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Registration

Registration is now closed.

Hotel: For hotel reservations, please contact the Claremont Hotel, online here or at 800-551-7266. If registering online, please enter the code CEP1009 in the Group Code to get the special rate of $149/night. If registering by phone, please ask for the “CEPP Group” to get the discount. CEPP will provide transportation to and from the hotel and the conference site.

Parking

Parking will be available in the second floor of the Lower Hearst Parking garage, located at Hearst Avenue and Scenic Avenue (entrance on Scenic). There will be an attendant selling parking tickets for $15 per day.

Supporting Organizations

The following organizations have generously given support for this conference:

Further support is welcome, including sponsorships of individual sectoral workshops (Sessions 4 and 7), and hosting of reception and dinner. For further details, please inquire with Robert Collier at the Center for Environmental Public Policy. [ ]

Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
2607 Hearst Avenue - Berkeley, CA 94720-7320 - Phone: (510) 642-4670 Fax: (510) 643-9657