Analysis Of And Solution To Intellectual Property Obstacle On International Transfer Of Low-carbon Technology

Global warming has become the biggest challenge that human beings are now faced with in the 21st century.However,in fact,the powerful weapon against climate change-low-carbon technology,has not been fully and effectively utilized.By using the excuse that low-carbon technologies are owned by private enterprises and are under the protection of intellectual property rights,the developed countries have always been refusing to perform the obligation to transfer low-carbon technologies to the developing countries as they have committed in the negotiations of global climate.Therefore,the international transfer of low-carbon technologies are faced with the barrier on protection of intellectual property.By investigating the reason,we could learn that the intellectual property right itself is actually not the reason for the hindered international transfer of low-carbon technology.The underlying reason is that the incompatibility between the way of protecting the intellectual property right in the current international intellectual property system?protecting the patentee's exclusive rights within a period of"monopoly" time,and the urgent reality that low-carbon technologies' badly need of being widely implemented.This incompatibility manifests that any proposed solutions failing to change the way of protection are doom to fail to completely remove the barrier.The nature of profit-driven of market has resulted in the "market failure" of low-carbon technologies on a global scale,and to implement a round of "macro-control" on a global scale may have become necessary now.Compulsory licensing of low-carbon technology is a constructive proposal,but due to its fundamental damage to the constant innovation of technology and also due to the need of being carried out on a global scale,this proposal is not viable to implement.Another new possible solution,which is rather milder compared with compulsory license and is related to carbon market--to establish a "special licensing" among the low-carbon technologies which are important and key to mitigating climate warming,provides a new approach to remove the barrier.The idea of the proposal is that,firstly establishing "Low-carbon Technology Special License Agreement" subjective to the TRIPS agreement,entitling everyone with the right to implement the technologies as long as specific procedure is observed and changing the licensing fee from the payment of money into CERs which could be traded in carbon market.Thus,"monopoly period"of intellectual property protection of the low-carbon technologies could be broken and meanwhile the patentees'rights have been well protected,the market role also has played.The next step is that all countries legislate for the specific implementation of the special licensing.Cooperation at the international level runs throughout the process--strengthening international cooperation among UNFCCC,WIPO and WTO to establish a globalization management platform for the"special licensing" of low-carbon technologies.In this way,the barrier on international transfer of low-carbon technologies can be eliminated,and the goal of widely transferring and implementing low-carbon technologies becomes possible.