Intellectual Property and Sustainability

Full course description

This course is intended to introduce you to the core issues surrounding the interaction of the intellectual property system for generation and distribution of technology with the goals of global sustainable development.  Global sustainable development, understood as enabling economic growth and development without degradation of the environment and human capital, has often relied on the creation of new technologies to enable these goals. For example, the development of cheaper, highly efficient electric vehicles is a major means by which reduction of greenhouse gas emissions can occur while enabling access to transportation for more people. This raises several key questions which this course will consider:

• How can and should we encourage research and development of technologies that meet our sustainable development goals?
• What technologies does this imply we should be looking at further developing?
• What is the role of the current framework for intellectual property protection as an enabler or a barrier and what changes, if any, to that framework should be made?
• How can and should we seek ways to increase access to relevant technologies?

The course begins with an overview of the sustainable development challenge and an overview of the technologies that are considered most important to that sustainable future.

Assessments

2 – 3 page policy brief (40%)

• This will be a brief backgrounder designed to informal policy maker about a specific technology solution for sustainable development of the student’s choice. Students are to research the technology, assess its current status as a technology (current, frontier, pre-commercialization), assess the effectiveness and prospects for adoption. They will present5 this brief to their fellow students in a  5 minute presentation and respond to questions from the floor

3 – 5 page policy brief (40%)

• This policy brief will have a student choose a country, and provide a brief backgrounder on the nature and state of achievement with respect to its climate change commitments in the UNFCCC; what technologies it needs to meet those climate goals; and what its position is on the technology elements of the climate change negotiations.

This policy brief will be due at the end of the IPKM period.

Participation in Negotiation (20%)

• This will be a Text based negotiation exercise. Students will be given a role to play as a negotiating team representing a particular country. They will be given a pre-written negotiation text with large portions of the text in brackets, as in a traditional negotiating text. Half the exercise will be generating a position and the other half will be directly negotiating with other teams, on a traditional text based negotiation with text thrown up on a screen.