Green Innovations and the Role of IP in Climate Action: A Catalyst or a Cage?

2nd May, 2025 - 11:47 am Categories: Technology 0 Comments

The world is in a state of precariousness. What we’re living through is thin, and narrow, and it’s an urgent window of time we need to address climate change. Some believe that IP laws are above all the engine for the bringing of money to corporations thus cutting off geographical access to solutions, while others maintain that patents are an engine of investment. But is this truly the case? On the brink of the planet entering a moving mental hospital in the face of its precariousness and environmental catastrophe, should intellectual property rights still demand who will save it? In this critical question, this blog post will tackle this point of interest, the tension between incentivizing innovation while making sure climate solutions are accessible to numerous. In this work, we shed light on patent’s nuances in their relations to development and deployment of green technologies and inquire: Is the current IP structure a driver of progress or a cage blocking our own way to tackle the climate issue?

THE DUAL FACE OF IP IN CLIMATE INNOVATION

The story usually goes like this in a prose passage on history of patenting of invention: patents are at the core of innovation, providing the companies with exclusivity in return for research and development. However, when it comes to climate tech there is no exclusivity and this exclusivity is a big hurdle for global sustainability. Yet, too many firms hoard patents as insurance against competition, at the expense of profit against planetary survival, and some firms do no doubt use patents as a driving force of technological excellence. The gist here is whether we have the right equilibrium between enabling innovation and fast and widespread diffusion of climate saving technologies.

Each of us can find an example: such as the carbon capture technology. Breakthrough solutions have been developed by various firms but limited access is mainly for their high patent costs. In a bid to slow the advancement of any of these — solar panels, batteries and biofuels, of course, all progress is occluded by IP protections that conspire to lock them away under use, in particular in the climate change sweating third world countries. Especially worrying for those nations most impacted by climate change, which have primarily been the least able to afford patented technologies that could aid in their mitigation and adaptation to the changes.

Advanced technologies in battery technology for electric vehicles can be used to further illustrate this point. Nevertheless, companies like Tesla have pushed the boundaries of battery performance while the underlying technologies are usually heavily patented. That implies that the smaller EV manufacturers in developing countries may not be ready to access these advancements enabling them to make affordable and competitive EVs. By doing this, it’s also slowing down the global transition to electric mobility and ensuring fuel dependence on fossil energy sources. Then we ask ourselves, by incentivizing innovation are we really calling for innovation when the resulting technologies are available to a handful of people.

IP MONOPOLIES: PROFIT OVER THE PLANET?

It is assumed that some of those patents are protecting corporations from paying for the recovery of R&D costs. However, the truth of the matter is that many firms use them as means for slicing off competition. Instead of innovation, big tech and big energy giants file broad patents and big tech and big energy definitely do it to control the sector and thus keep smaller players out of the market. The result is a scenario in which a few giant corporate entities are in a position to chart the course of technological evolution in a way that is against the interests of the greater society.

Take Tesla, for instance, which released some of its patents, but critics have a point in pointing out that, unlike more giant companies who did much the same before them, it was really about branding, not simply about real accessibility. However, this means that at the same time, key climate technologies are still out of reach, about the same as the history of the pharmaceutical industry in reducing the global spread of vaccines during COVID-19. As far as climate action goes, this mistake cannot be repeated. The climate solutions are simply too important for corporate monopolies to set the pace and scope.

What implications does there have to be for a major agricultural company claiming patent over drought resistant crop varieties? This might encourage the development of such crops, yet also imply that farmers in dried out expanses, most inclined to climate change, might need to purchase these seeds at high charges. To feed themselves or their nation if the climate doesn’t cooperate, these farmers would need the patented seeds but cannot afford them. In such cases, maximizing profit through IP protection directly stands in the way of climate resilience.

BREAKING BARRIERS: REFORMING IP FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

If green innovations won’t just help corporate enterprises but also help the planet, these reforms on IP laws are indeed needed. Some key changes include:

1. Emergency Access: As we saw in sustained and widespread crises, governments should be able to disable patents for essential climate technologies, at pace we need, for lives, to save them. This would keep everybody able to pay able to access critical technologies.
2. Patent Pools & Open Innovation: Rather than reinventing the wheel, the money and effort invested should go towards the collective pools of corporations to pool their key green innovations and collectively making progress than struggling on one’s own. This would lead to creating a climate of sharing knowledge and to speeding up the development of climate solutions.
3. Shortened Patent Lifespans: Climate patents shouldn’t live for 20 years. The sooner something goes faster, the less protected it becomes. Under the circumstances of a climate crisis, the 20 year patent term may be too long for most green technologies. This reducing this period will further speed up the pace of innovation and deployment.
4. Public Investment in Green Tech: Governments should co-invest and research climate solution technologies to be made available to all, not for profit, which is different from relying on only private firms. This would make sure that necessary technologies would be accessible to all, not only people who can manage them.
5. Compulsory Licensing: Addressing the fact that governments have the right to issue compulsory licenses (i.e., licenses granted by a government permitting the use of a patented invention without the consent of the patent holder, especially for the purpose of national emergency or for public non-commercial use), strengthening and streamlining the process thereof.
6. Incentivizing Open-Source Innovation: Include provisions that will give companies and researchers a tax break, grants, or other incentives to develop and release under open source licenses that spur a collaborative, open climate innovation approach.
7. International Technology Transfer Agreements: They should facilitate agreements that allow green technologies that have already become available and are ready for transfer from developed to developing countries on preferential terms, which should guarantee that the necessary tools to address climate change will be available to all nations.
8. Establishment of a Global Green Technology Fund: Establish a fund that creates financial assistance and technical expertise to support the development and deployment of green technologies in developing countries so as to help develop climate resilient economies.

It should not be intellectual property laws which stand as the impediment to fight a climate crisis against time. But if these next set of incipient ceilings cannot withstand being reformed or unmade to allow collective survival at the expense of corporate interests then this next set of ceilings is doomed. Climate innovation shouldn’t be the monopoly of a small elite but the right of all. This depends on what future is ahead of our planet. We therefore face the challenge of developing an IP system that encourages innovation and provides to the technologies that have the capacity to address climate change an equitable access. It has profound consequences and requires a ground shifting in priorities of shifting the well being of the planet ahead of the short term economic profit. Then only can we hope to construct a sustainable and just future for all.

Author: Shriya Bhardwaj, in case of any queries please contact/write back to us via email to chhavi@khuranaandkhurana.com or at Khurana & Khurana, Advocates and IP Attorney.

REFERENCES

1. Are Open-Source Patent Portfolios the Key to the EV revolution?, AUTOMOTIVE WORLD, https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/are-open-source-patent-portfolios-the-key-to-the-ev-revolution.
2. Patent as a Tool for Facilitating Innovation: Lessons from Green Technology, CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE INNOVATION, https://www.cigionline.org/publications/patent-as-a-tool-for-facilitating-innovation-lessons-from-green-technology/.
3. Intellectual Property Law and Climate Change , LAW CLIMATE ATLAS, https://lawclimateatlas.org/resources/intellectual-property-law-and-climate-change/.
4. The Role of IP in Green Technology Innovation, METIS PARTNERS, https://metispartners.com/thought-leadership/the-role-of-ip-rights-in-green-technologies-innovation/.
5. Green Patent Paradox, SEATTLE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjteil/vol11/iss1/8/.
6. Venner Shipley, Does Tesla’s Open Source Patent Philosophy Mean They Are Free to Use?, VENNER SHIPLEY https://www.vennershipley.com/insights-events/does-teslas-open-source-patent-philosophy-mean-they-are-free-to-use/.
7. Climate Change and Intellectual Property, WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION, https://www.wipo.int/global_challenges/en/climate_change/.