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U.S. group urges strong patent rights in climate deal PDF Print E-mail
Written by Doug Palmer   
Monday, 05 October 2009 13:12

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INTERNATIONAL DEBATE: U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk stressed the importance of intellectual property rights to international advisory firm Garten Rothkopf. (Photo: ZUMA Press)
 
The United States could lose 1 million green jobs by 2020 if it gives into demands by poor countries to loosen patent protections on climate-friendly technologies, a U.S. business leader said last week.
 
Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said U.S. manufacturers would not invest in "alternative fuels and energy-saving devices and emission-reducing technologies if somebody is going to rip it off."
 
He spoke as countries struggled to work out a new treaty on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming to be considered at a meeting in Copenhagen in December.
 
Some developing countries, worried they will have to pay a high price for new emission-cutting technologies, want the pact to allow them to issue 'compulsory licenses.'
 
That would allow a government to force a patent holder to license the use of a product or technology deemed critical to meeting the country's greenhouse gas reduction goals.
 
Donohue said in a speech to the chamber: "We have to strenuously oppose those ... governments that think weakening of IP (intellectual property) rights via compulsory licensing is the most effective way for developing countries to get the technologies they need."
 
"Put it another way we understand a little bit better in this country: They want to steal it," he said.
 
A report prepared for the U.S. Chamber's Global Intellectual Property Center estimated that "compulsory licensing of green technology could cost a million jobs by 2020 and lots more after that," Donohue said.
 
The study, by international advisory firm Garten Rothkopf, looked at potential job losses in five green tech sectors -- solar, biofuels, wind, batteries and LED lighting -- under an "involuntary" compulsory licensing scheme.
 
The job losses could be "as high as 3 million, if one uses the expansive projections of some industry associations" or as low as 300,000 if only renewable energy and some energy efficiency sectors are considered, the study said.
 
"Adopting conservative assumptions, 1 million jobs could be forfeited by 2020," with the pace of job losses increasing rapidly after 2015 when many technologies begin to hit their stride, the study said.
 
Among the problems is lack of a clear legal definition of "climate-friendly technologies," potentially giving countries wide scope to apply compulsory licensing to any technology that in some way reduces waste or greenhouse gases, the study said.
 
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who spoke to the group on the importance of intellectual property rights protection to the U.S. economy, told reporters after the speech he was not sure how the United States would respond to developing country demands for compulsory licenses in the climate talks.
 
"I don't think we've reached a final resolution of that," Kirk said.
 
But "the cost of innovating and R&D has to be monetized and returned to the investors in some way. We do that through the copyright and patent system that has worked well for us for over a hundred years. We believe it will work well for the rest of the world," Kirk said.
 
(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by David Storey and Paul Simao)
 
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written by Fran Tracy, November 07, 2009
I have to agree with with him. The companies put a lot of money into developing the technology and I think they chould be compensated for it. Possibly a 10% discount for developing countries would be in order. If these countries really need the technologies, other countries making lots of money could pay for the technology.
Fran

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