Abbe E.L. Brown

Exploring the potential for alignment as well as conflicts between IP and climate change, Intellectual Property, Climate Change and Technology encourages a coherent and integrated approach to decision making. This groundbreaking book identifies and challenges the lack of intersection between intellectual property law and climate change law at national level. It argues that intellectual property confers private rights on the results of innovation and creativity, while climate change law and policy exists more in the public sphere without engagement with intellectual property, with no space for the conflict between this private power and public goal to be investigated in litigation. This thought-provoking book will be of great interest to scholars working in the fields of IP, climate change law, human rights, and planning and sustainable development, challenging the assumption that some problems are dealt with only through consideration of certain areas of the law. Proposing new processes for policy and law making in order to remove barriers between these fields, Intellectual Property, Climate Change and Technology will also be a valuable resource for members of parliament and policy makers.

This detailed book explores the relationship between intellectual property, competition and human rights. It considers the extent to which they can and must be combined by decision makers, and how this approach can foster innovation in key areas for society such as pharmaceutical drugs, communications software and technology to combat climate change.The author argues that these three legal fields are strongly interrelated and that they can be used to identify essential technologies. She demonstrates that in some cases, combining the fields can deliver new bases for wider access to be provided to technologies. The solutions developed are strongly based on existing laws, with a focus on the UK and the EU and the structures of existing forms of dispute resolution, including the European Court of Human Rights and the dispute settlement bodies of the World Trade Organization. The final chapters also suggest opportunities for further engagement at international policy and activist level, new approaches to IP and its treaties, and wider adoption of the proposals.This timely book will appeal to academics and practitioners in IP, competition and human rights, as well as innovation-related industry groups and access to knowledge, health and environment activists.