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Immaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht

Bridging the Gap between the Intellectual Property Regime and Clean Technology Transfer

Clean technology transfer (CTT) has a close relationship with the intellectual property regime. There is, though, a gap between the current IP legal regime and the demands of CTT. It is the goal of the present project to narrow this gap by improving both the IP regime and the CTT regime.

Last Update: 13.09.18

Environmental pollution and global climate change have become significant topics drawing the human race’s attention at present. CTT can be one of the focuses for tackling these problems.
Numerous nations worldwide are launching various cooperation projects and have hitherto signed many international treaties to foster protection of the environment and fight or at least the consequences of the ongoing climate change.
The present project shows that technology-related IPRs as private rights are at over 90% of the relevant key technology owned by transnational corporations (TNCs) in developed countries which emphasize a lot on protecting private right, while most environmental protection treaties are the consensus on the rights and obligations of governments, so the conflicts between the government promise and the right protection of the private persons who hold technologies have frequently occurred.
In the countries whose governments are the representatives of private interest groups, the government promise made under the pressure from the international community usually cannot be admitted and implemented by TNCs and other private sectors who purse maximum private interests.
The intellectual property regime should be part of a solution and not a barrier to international CTT. Appropriate protection of IPRs regime shall be established to avoid “over-protectionism” of patents. Compulsory licensing may be applied to GT patents. CTT shall be based on reasonable and fair terms, not free of charge. However, a universal international treaty that coordinates private interest and government promise may be an effective solution to this problem, which links ESTs transfer with international trade through the private interests of the trade to make international obligations performed. The relatively successful practice of the international treaties and agreements under WTO has offered good reference to making the ITT agreement. Therefore, reaching an ITT agreement under WTO on the base of the existing international treaties and legislation is a feasible way for the human race to overcome the dilemma of global warming and to reach the expected goal of GHG emission.
Cooperation is the only way for the future and cooperation is the human nature, especially when humans face the serious crisis for living. Let’s conclude the paper with the quotes from the major character, Adrian Helmsmen, in the film 2012, which demonstrate the glory of humanity, to ignite the fire for cooperation in CTT: “I know we've all been forced to make difficult decisions to save our human civilization, but to be human means to care for each other and civilization means to work together to create a better life” and “The moment we stop fighting for each other, that's the moment we lose our humanity.”

Persons

Project Manager

Zhongfa Ma 

Supervisor

Dr. Axel Walz

Main Areas of Research

II.1 Technologiegetriebene Märkte