Civil Society Network Issues Proposals On Climate Change And IPRs

An international network of civil society groups has issued a set of proposals for governments to encourage innovation and access to key technologies against climate change while taking intellectual property rights into account.

Climate Action Network International (CAN), a civil society association with 700 members from 90 countries, made a submission to the UN process to address climate change, suggesting ways toward resolutions in cases where IP rights create barriers to access to technologies to mitigate climate change.

“In the absence of some guidance on key issues related to IPR from the Technology Mechanism (TM),” the submission said, “countries and providers would be left to deal with each IPR issue that arises from scratch, stalling and even derailing much-needed technology deployment.”

The process is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Technology Executive Committee.

The CAN submission is here [pdf].