Why Patents on Climate Technologies Must Be Cut Short

Abstract

Abstract This contribution questions the term of protection for patents under circumstances of climate change. Patents typically last for 20 years but, for climate-related technologies, this is arguably too long. Under the 1.5°C scenario of the Paris Agreement, we need to make significant headway before 2030. Luckily, the technologies that need to be implemented broadly to reach the 2030 threshold have been developed already. To save civilisation from the worst impacts of climate change, the roll-out of existing technologies (static efficiency) is more important than the development of new ones (dynamic efficiency). However, patent terms take neither static efficiency nor the climate timeframe into account. Technologies developed today will come off patent only in the 2040s, limiting their free availability when their wide roll-out should be the main concern. Conversely, the climate technologies that come off patent today were developed in the early 2000s, long before climate change acquired its current urgency and investment in climate technologies was ramped up. These developments show that innovation systems for climate change have worked well, but they also show how terms of protection may now curtail the usefulness of past innovations. The contribution will analyse patent terms from a domestic and an international political economy perspective. The contribution will argue that, on balance, the situation requires a change of the TRIPS Agreement to shorten the term of patents on mature climate technologies. The TRIPS-waiver for patents on COVID-19 vaccines provides a partial precedent.