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Innovation and Intellectual Property Management (IIPM) Laboratory

Intellectual property (IP) is a tool to help govern global open innovation systems, and should therefore be given higher priority when leading into a more sustainable post-Covid-19 world.

The Covid-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are both global challenges for humanity and crises of unprecedented scale that call for international collective responses. While both are urgent, the Covid-19 pandemic appears to many as more imminent, maybe because of its rapid spread and visible threat to life. In just a few months, the pandemic has led to large scale international responses, while mitigating climate change appears to be a much slower, longer endeavour.

For both crises however, intellectual property (IP) lends itself as an important policy tool. Innovation plays a major role for ending both crises for which solutions are likely to be technology  dependent. Considerations regarding the ownership, access to and usage of IP rights, such as patents, copyright, design rights and trademarks, but also of data and trade secrets are important for effective innovation processes and for governing collaborative, open and global innovation systems. For instance, patents (or the prospect of getting a patent) can provide strong investment incentives for stakeholders who engage in the development of green technologies as well as for finding the Covid-19 vaccine. Licensing mechanisms are important for the global south to access sustainable technologies, such as solar energy, but also for Covid-19 diagnostics and hopefully later the vaccine. Accordingly, understanding choices and effects of IP models along technology development processes is paramount for both crises. Continue reading.

News & Blog articles

Newspaper article

2 June 2025

A short opinion piece by Prof. Tietze was featured in the Brussels Morning Newspaper calling for more innovation within our IPR systems to address global challenges: https://brusselsmorning.com/we-need-strong-intellectual-property-rights-for-a-sustainable-future/73186/

Thought piece: Has Innovation Broken Western Culture? Reflections on Contemporary Western Culture and Possible Innovative Ways Forward

20 May 2025

By Frank Tietze (2025) Western culture today is profoundly shaped by ongoing waves of innovation, a concept close to my heart and to which I have dedicated many years of my professional research and teaching career. Technological innovation particularly has transformed daily life, created jobs, and helped build tech...

New paper published on the Geopolitics of Battery Technologies

20 May 2025

Together with colleagues from the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Muenster, the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Battery Cell Production (FFB) and the Helmholtz Institute Muenster (IMD-4) we have published the results of a patent study investigating the geostrategic race for leadership in...