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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

IIPM annual review

20 December 2024

We have summarized some of the key events and achievements of the Lab and our members from 2024 in a first ever edition of our annual review, which is available for download iipm-ctm_annual_review_2024.pdf iipm-ctm_annual_review_2024.pdf .

ALPS team meeting in Cambridge

13 December 2024

It was a pleasure to welcome most the ALPS team to Cambridge. Having worked for some many months together mostly remotely, it was good to see everyone again together in-person. The team works on the Automated Licensing Payment System (ALPS) project currently exploring options to commercialize the technology platform. The...

ECNU guest lecture and alumni meeting in Shanghai

12 December 2024

Following the days at Tongji University, Prof. Tietze provided a guest lecture to students at the East China Normal University (ECNU) as part of the module run by Dr. Aocheng Tang , Assitant Professor at ECNU's Department of Economics and Management and IIPM Lab alumni. This year, at ECNU he started teaching the first ever...