Fast-Tracked Patents: Using the Patent System in the Race to Combat Climate Change

Innovation for the public good surely includes researching and developing technologies to combat climate change⁴—“the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced.”⁵ On one hand, the patent system may generate incentives to develop green technology. It offers a business model for start-up endeavors that would otherwise not be feasible due to high commercialization costs.⁶ On the other hand, however, representatives of developing countries contend that patenting green technologies makes them inaccessible and hinders adoption.⁷ Director of the Third World Network, Michael Khor, urges that “[Intellectual property rights] confer monopoly rights, and can curb affordable access through higher prices…as well as be a barrier to the introduction or upgrading of technology by private industry or public-sector agencies in developing countries.”⁸ Generally, intellectual property rights are viewed as either incentivizing the development of green technology or hindering access to necessary technologies that can combat climate change.