back
Dissertation
Immaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht

The Role of Intellectual Property for Clean Technology Development in the European legal framework.

This thesis will revise the role of IP law, particularly European & national patent laws, in the context of environmental protection integration, with a view to promoting clean energy technologies. It will analyze the Treaty, patent system, licensing/collaborative IP structures & support mechanisms.

Last Update: 01.08.13

The transition towards a greener economy through the development of renewal energy technologies demands significant support from policy makers to achieve the technological changes needed to meet the agreed energy targets. However, rather little attention has been paid until recently to the relevance of IP rights to promote clean technology innovation and hence environmental goals.

The first contact between environmental and IP policy in the EU can be found in the Lisbon Treaty. The EU general objectives have a strong legal significance and the codification of the principle of sustainable development entails a legal duty to integrate the environmental protection requirements in all the Union policies.

At another level, there is a need to consider the role that IP law may play to encourage innovation and diffusion of clean technologies to help attain the EU environmental goals.

Firstly, the research displays the legal framework adopted to combat climate change, it describes the IP linkage with environmental concerns, and it sets forth the problematic associated to the concept of “clean” technology.

Secondly, the study carries out a governance and legal analysis to examine what the environmental integration principle (Article 11 TFEU) entails for the EU institutions and the Member States, particularly for the regulation of IP rights.

Thirdly, the research examines how in practice the goals and principles set by environmental law influence the IP regime, and specifically, the patent system. It analyzes procedural and substantive patent law reforms sought by several patent offices and proposed by scholars in the field.

Fourthly, the project aims to determine whether appropriate licensing and collaborative IP structures could be implemented to foster incentives and to promote access of third parties to make use of such clean energy technologies.

Lastly, the study also covers the relationship between patent law and government support mechanisms for environmental protection.

Persons

Doctoral Student

Marisa Aranda

Supervisor

Dr. Gintare Surblyte

Doctoral Supervisor

Prof. Dr. Christoph Ann

Main Areas of Research

Zielsetzungen der Europäischen Union