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The role of patent protection in (clean/green) technology transfer

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  • Bronwyn H. Hall
  • Christian Helmers

Abstract

Global climate change mitigation will require the development and diffusion of a large number and variety of new technologies. How will patent protection affect this process? In this paper we first review the evidence on the role of patents for innovation and international technology transfer in general. The literature suggests that patent protection in a host country encourages technology transfer to that country but that its impact on innovation and development is much more ambiguous. We then discuss the implications of these findings and other technology-specific evidence for the diffusion of climate change-related technologies. We conclude that the “double externality” problem, that is the presence of both environmental and knowledge externalities, implies that IP may not be the ideal and cannot be the only policy instrument to encourage innovation in this area and that the range and variety of green technologies as well as the need for local adaptation of technologies means that patent protection may be neither available nor useful in some settings.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford in its series CSAE Working Paper Series with number 2010-23.

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Date of creation: 2010
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Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2010-23

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Keywords: Climate change; intellectual property; innovation; technology transfer;

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Antoine Dechezleprêtre & Richard Perkins & Eric Neumayer, 2012. "Regulatory distance and the transfer of new environmentally sound technologies: evidence from the automobile sector," Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Working Papers 73, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
  2. Dutz, Mark A. & Sharma, Siddharth, 2012. "Green growth, technology and innovation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5932, The World Bank.
  3. Takeshi Iida & Kenji Takeuchi, 2011. "Does free trade promote environmental technology transfer?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 104(2), pages 159-190, October.
  4. Popp, David, 2012. "The role of technological change in green growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6239, The World Bank.
  5. David Hendry, 2010. "Climate Change: Lessons for our Future from the Distant Past," Economics Series Working Papers 485, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

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