Move to have "climate friendly" tech excluded from patenting

According to the folk at the Third World Network (TWN), at the UN climate change talks in Bonn,

"The Group of 77 and China as well as several developing countries in their individual capacity have made proposals calling for climate-friendly technologies to be excluded from patenting.

In their text submitted Wednesday, the G77 and China proposed that "All necessary steps shall be immediately taken in all relevant fora to mandatorily exclude from patenting climate-friendly technologies held by Annex II countries which can be used to adapt to or mitigate climate change". [Annex II of the Convention contains a list of 24 developed countries with financial obligations].

The "no patents" proposal is one of several other ambitious proposals put forward by developing countries to address the intellectual property barrier to the transfer of and access to environmentally-sound technologies for climate mitigation and adaptation (ESTs)."

The greater proportion of such patents are currently held by commerical organizations in developed countries and the move is another indication that China really is getting serious about renewable energy. Thanks to Sangeeta Shashikant of TWN via the A2K list for the pointer.