General Electric's Chief IP Counsel Calls To The Arms: An...

"But [...] one of the biggest threats to IP is coming from the growing anti-IP contingent. After some success with the pharma companies in the access to medicine debate, Horton explained, these groups are now targeting green tech. Calls for compulsory licensing have been increasing over recent months as the meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen gets ever closer. If the IP community doesn't want December's meeting to result in compulsory licensing of green technologies, Horton warned, it's time that it took a stand. Innovation, he claimed, is what will drive down the price point of green tech, something that is critical if we are to achieve widespread adoption of climate-saving technologies. And without IP, where's the incentive to innovate?"

This statement sheds some more light on the necessity of making the European Patent Office applying for and eventually getting granted observer status at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) which takes place in Copenhagen on December 07-18, 2009. A total of 192 countries will participate in the negotiations which perhaps might lead to a global climate agreement for the period from 2012 onwards. For more background on the present political debate on IP see also an article by Mr Martin Khor in the Malaysian The Star.

According to Ms Sara-Jayne Adams' report, Horton's presented a three-step plan to fight the anti-IP threat:

• Recognise that there is a threat, that it's real and it's growing.
• Acknowledge that the potential impact of compulsory licensing will be "sweeping and broad based".
• Mobilise against the anti-IP activists by building cross-industry coalitions to deliver a strong IP message.

Horton also expressed his concern that especially not all of the BRIC countries are doing a fair play on the political stage concerning patenting of green technology: 'what's yours is ours and what's ours is ours'.

Obviously the interest in patents on green technology is increasing. There are even at least two Blogs dedicated to this range of topics:

• Green Patent Blog run by Mr Eric Lane who is a patent attorney at Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego; and
• Griffith Hack Clean & Sustainable Technologies Group.

However, following Mr Horton's three point recommendation as quoted above might not be that easy. It appears to be a bit like the situation in the run-up for the second reading of the EU Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in the European Parliament in 2005, where the severity of the situation had not been recognised by many IP stakeholders until, in a very last-minute action, some major players from industry had stepped in.