UN agency targets clean technologies

By Frances Williams in Geneva
Published: March 5 2009 16:43

The intellectual property agency of the United Nations is to promote wider use of new technology to meet the global challenge of climate change.
Francis Gurry, the Australian lawyer who took over the helm of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) in October, plans to take a new look at how the intellectual property system can ensure that patents are not a barrier to trade.

In an interview, Mr Gurry said Wipo would look at ways in which patents on new “clean technologies” that cut greenhouse gas emissions could be used to promote rather than restrict access to those technologies, especially by developing countries.
Wipo does not want to “wait passively” for climate change technology to become mired in the kind of acrimonious public debate that has beset pharmaceutical patents, where there have been accusations that patents held by first world companies are restricting access to affordable medicines in developing countries.
Through its international patent filing system, Wipo has a huge repository of technical information and could offer an online platform to allow companies to share information about clean technology innovation.
Companies could use the online exchange to disclose their technologies with a view to collaborating on research with others on a commercial basis. Participants would pledge to licence green technologies “on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms”, enabling any company in the system to access them for use in research.
Mr Gurry said he planned to explore the possibilities of creating this “open innovation” platform with governments and “clean technology” industry leaders in the coming weeks.
“If we can develop mechanisms that show that the marketplace is working for developing and diffusing new technologies, we’re in a much better position to avoid recourse to compulsory licensing and other measures,” he said.
Wipo’s proposed initiatives on climate change are part of a nine-point strategy approved by its 184 member states in December. This is aimed at making the organisation more efficient and more active in IP policy debates, with a focus on issues of concern to developing countries.
However, Mr Gurry, a Wipo veteran of 24 years and former deputy director general, faces a difficult task in transforming an agency weakened by several years of scandal that forced his predecessor, Kamil Idris of Sudan, to leave office a year early.
The start of his six-year term has also coincided with a deepening of the world economic downturn. Figures published in January suggest this has already started to have an impact on international patent filings, which account for the bulk of Wipo’s income.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009