Sustainability Objectives In Competition And Intellectual Property Law

This open access volume of LIDC contributions focuses on how competition and intellectual property laws incorporate sustainability objectives. Businesses are increasingly embracing sustainability objectives, driven by the international community. Although competition and intellectual property law are certainly not the only tools for addressing sustainability issues, they can play a role in moving toward a more sustainable society. Sustainability has gained prominence in competition law in all jurisdictions covered in this volume. The contributions focus on classic questions such as whether sustainability agreements restrict competition and, if so, to what extent businesses can be exempted on efficiency grounds. The papers also raise a number of questions, in particular concerning the treatment of non-market efficiencies. The soft law and case law produced by competition authorities are examined, and the leadership role of some competition authorities in the field – from advocacy to policy papers and sustainability guidelines – is highlighted. The authors call for more individual guidance to provide enhanced transparency and clarity to industry, advisors and society at large on sustainability issues, with guidelines or sustainability-related block exemptions providing even greater legal certainty. With regard to intellectual property, the contributions examine various important issues, such as the need for intellectual property rights to remain technology-neutral, ways to promote the use of sustainable technologies and incentives for licensing, and ways to promote the dissemination of sustainable technologies, including compulsory licensing, cross-licensing, open source or FRAND licensing, and replacing the destruction of counterfeit goods with recycling. The papers also discuss greenwashing and how it can be addressed through revisions to trademarks and related rights.

Discussing how intellectual property (IP) rights play a role in tackling the challenge of securing sustainable development, renowned scholars consider how the core objective of IP rights to promote innovation and development of new knowledge aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This timely and thought-provoking book provides an in-depth analysis of the multi-faceted interface between this core objective and the SDGs and argues for sustainable markets as an overreaching and contextual approach to the role of IP rights in tackling the challenges of the UN SDGs.

DIVFocuses on the WTO and intellectual property rights in international law /div

ÔThis is a thought-provoking book with relevance to a broad readership, especially IP practitioners with a strong international focus.Õ Ð Australian Intellectual Property Law Bulletin Intellectual property (IP) has gained an unprecedented importance in the new world of globalization and the knowledge economy. However, experience, as well as cyclical attitudes toward IP, show that there is no universal model of IP protection. This comprehensive book considers new and emerging IP issues from a development perspective, examining recent trends and developments in this area. Presenting an overview of the IP landscape in general, the contributing authors subsequently narrow their focus, providing wide-ranging case studies from countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America on topical issues in the current IP discourse. These include the impact of IP on the pharmaceutical sector, the protection of life forms and traditional knowledge, geographical indications, access to knowledge and public research institutes, and the role of competition policy. The challenges developing countries face in the TRIPS-Plus world are also explored in detail. The diverse range of contributions to this thought-provoking book offer a wide variety of alternative perspectives on and solutions for the controversial issues surrounding the role of IP within sustainable development. As such, it will prove a stimulating read for government policy-makers, trade negotiators, academics, lawyers and IP practitioners in general, UN and other intergovernmental agencies, development campaigners and aid agencies, environmentalist groups and university students.

This book expands on law-related research by examining the legal aspects of sustainability with a focus on the impact on business strategies. It recognizes that firms must adopt an integrated approach to law and sustainability, considering multiple disciplines and goals, and serve as a forum for bringing together scholarship from fields such as environmental law, energy, government regulation and intellectual property. Firms increasingly have an interest in transitioning to sustainable business practices that take into consideration the fact that global resources are finite and will be increasingly scarce. They acknowledge that current actions have social, economic and environmental consequences and employ options to ensure that future generations have the same options and benefits. Examples of sustainable practices increasingly employed by firms include the institutionalization of “whole life-cycle” analysis in marketing and product design, utilization of sustainable inputs and energy sources, tracking and reporting sustainability performance, attempting the valuation of future generation prosperity and happiness as a discounting mechanism, and integrating sustainability into firm culture and management goals. It is clear that law and regulation have an extremely important role to play in the transition to more sustainable business practices. Broadly stated, law can provide structure for firms responding to forces that pull transition by enabling sustainability leadership and competitive advantage through funding models, intellectual property rights and collaboration means. Additionally, law can work to push transition by compelling firms to act through regulatory structures, accounting and governance mechanisms.

Complex geopolitical debate surrounds the role of intellectual property (IP) in advancing and achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Summarising and advancing this discourse, this prescient Companion is a thorough examination of how IP law interacts, influences and impacts each of the seventeen SDGs.

In Johannesburg at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, over one hundred and eighty states assumed a collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development economic development, social development, an environmental protection at the local, national, regional and global levels. This remarkable collection of papers, sponsored by the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), demonstrates that sustainable development serves as a unifying concept with the potential to facilitate much-needed respect for international law and timely implementation of diverse and overlapping international commitments. It builds on the substance of a rich and complex debate at the intersections among economic, social, and environmental law, bringing together a broad cross-section of viewpoints and voices. The authors review recent developments in WTO discussions and negotiations, and in the recent decisions of the WTO Appellate Body, from a sustainable development law perspective. They also survey relevant new developments in trade and economic agreements at regional, inter-regional and bi-lateral levels. The various essays focus on sustainable development aspects of key issues in recent trade negotiations such as the Singapore Issues (investment, competition, trade facilitation, and government procurement), intellectual property rights, investment arbitration and the linkage between the WTO and multilateral environmental accords, (MEAand¿s).. Among the specific topics covered are the following: Emerging areas of law and policy in trade and sustainable development, The underlying development agendas in global trade law negotiations, Cooperation and potential negotiation on international competition law, Sustainable development aspects of intellectual property rights negotiations, Overlaps between multilateral environmental accords (MEAand¿s) and the WTO, Recent developments in WTO dispute settlement procedures and proceedings, Human rights and environmental opportunities from trade liberalisation and increased market acces, Human rights and environment impact assessment techniques used to analyse trade agreements, Recent developments in bi-lateral and regional trade agreements. Trade, investment, and competition law practitioners and negotiators in developed and developing countries will find this book of great value, as will development and environment law professionals with responsibility for trade and WTO law related matters. With rich contributions from leading trade law practitioners, academics, and WTO panel and appellate body roster members, Sustainable Developments in World Trade Law offers a constructive, timely and accessible expert analysis of recent discussions and advances in the field, providing an integrated and essential guide to some of the most important issues in international economic law today.

Competition and Sustainability critically examines how the market economy can be preserved without compromising the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. Serving as a useful overview of the problems and solutions found in one of the most controversial issues in current antitrust doctrine, this topical book offers concrete policy options for EU competition law.