The IP Tightrope: Balancing Intellectual Property Development and the UN SDGs
The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force in 2015. Since their introduction, we have seen great improvements in many areas: clean energy is growing steadily, education is improving, and gender equality is looking more attainable each year. Unfortunately, we have seen not only stagnation for some goals, but even worsening trends. Despite decades of improvements, hunger is once again a growing problem, particularly in the Global South.
We still have a long way to go, and it is looking increasingly difficult to meet many of the 2030 goals without new, paradigm-shifting technologies and innovations. This year’s World Intellectual Property day, the World International Property Organization (WIPO) invites us all to explore how intellectual property (IP) can help us attain the SDGs. While the connection between IP and attaining the SDGs is not obvious, IP deserves some attention for its role in development efforts. Here, I make a case for IP as a vital tool for meeting the UN SDGs and more generally as a means of accelerating international development efforts.
The value of intellectual property in international development
Guaranteeing and asserting intellectual property rights (IPR) is a major way of incentivizing innovation. In brief, research and development requires capital. Even a small-scale drug development laboratory requires tens of millions of dollars in capital investment with absolutely no guarantees of returns. IP protections allow inventors and their companies the exclusive right to profit on their inventions, making research financially viable.
These protections also attract investment from venture capitalists or commercial funds, who would naturally gravitate towards projects with exclusive rights that prevent competitors from copying their ideas and jeopardizing their profits. This also promotes long-term investment over realizing quick gains, as it allows both inventors and investors to feel secure that their money and effort expended on complex and time-consuming projects will not be immediately undermined by imitators.
Finally, while IPRs grant exclusivity, they can also incentivize knowledge sharing. Patent systems require inventors to publicly disclose their inventions, allowing others to build on previous knowledge, fostering a virtuous cycle of development. Furthermore, formal IP sharing agreements and tech transfer can improve collaboration while maintaining IPR control. In summary, IPR is not a way of greedily concentrating profits, but a way of creating a clear reward structure for innovators and their funders.
Case studies
Medicines Patent Pool
A patent pool is a collaboration where multiple parties share ownership of patents to streamline licensing, reduce costs, and encourage innovation. The Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a UN-backed indicative that negotiates voluntary licenses with patent holders to allow the production of affordable generics. This increases access to critical medicines in less economically developed countries, thereby contributing to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being.
MPP first focused on tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which once killed millions of people annually, before advances in drug development slashed death and infection rates, reducing HIV infection to a manageable health condition in many patients. However, this relies on people with HIV/AIDS having reliable access to antiretroviral drugs, which are usually under patent and too expensive for many people in the poorest nations. MPP has licenses for 13 HIV antiretrovirals, and it has since expanded its scope to other threats to human health in the Global South, including tuberculosis, hepatitis C, and malaria.
MPP works on the aforementioned idea that patents reward innovation. By licensing critical drugs from patent holders, MPP can allow cheaper manufacturers in specific countries to produce drugs while allowing patent holders to voluntarily set their terms and maintain their rights in other markets. MPP has successfully increased the supplies of generics and overseen great improvements in health outcomes, making it a shining example of IPR being harnessed to improve SDG development.
The Green Climate Fund
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a South Korea-based international fund established during the 2010 UN Climate Change Conference within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its goal is to support climate mitigation strategies in the developing world by seeking financial contributions from developed countries and paying them to beneficiaries, particularly in the Global South, thereby supporting SDGs 7, 10, and 13.
As well as acting as a funding body to mitigate climate change impacts in less economically developed countries, it has also collaborated with research institutions to share IP rights resulting from their activities. As one example, GCF published a memorandum of understanding signed with Incheon National University guaranteeing non-exclusive rights to use their jointly created IP. Some opinion pieces have highlighted the potential of the GCF becoming a patent pool for innovators albeit this has not become an official role. Nevertheless, GCF represents a laudable effort to create a more equitable climate mitigation strategy by harnessing capital and IP from economically developed countries and applying them in less developed ones.
Chandigarh University
Chandigarh University (CU) is a recently established university in Punjab, India. Since 2012, it has gained a reputation as a center of innovation with a strong focus on the UN SDGs in their research efforts. According to one article published in 2022, CU had 1800 patents filed, with industry funding exceeding tens of millions of rupees for some projects. Since then, the number has ballooned to over 2400 patents filed, with over 1900 published and 150 granted, beaten only by the collective efforts of India’s vaunted IIT universities. CU has also set up a business incubator for startups, representing another means of commercializing their patents and attracting further research funding. Overall, CU shows how universities can effectively juggle both SDGs and IP strategy.
The International Rice Research Institute
Rice is the staple food of over half of the world’s population; therefore, improving the cultivation of rice is a lynchpin in achieving SDG 2: Zero Hunger. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is based in the Philippines; since 1960, it has played a critical role in rescuing millions of people from famine by optimizing rice cultivation techniques and developing new cultivars with improved nutritional properties. As one example, the IR8 rice cultivar that was introduced in the 1960s offered manyfold greater yields per cultivated hectare than before.
IRRI has a strong emphasis on tech transfer. They collaborate extensively with private industry in basic and applied research, license or joint-develop IPs with private companies, and undertake sponsored scientific research.
Furthermore, IRRI even has a detailed FAQ page on their intellectual property strategy outlining their rationale for patents and addressing common concerns about using IP in international development. I highly recommend it as a source for further reading, not only for those hoping to understand IRRI, but also for anybody wanting to understand how IPR and the SDGs can work together for mutual benefit.
Conclusion
IP can be far more than a way of protecting profits. Properly applied, it can help innovators secure funding, perform more research, and create new technologies and techniques that can overcome current global issues. Addressing the delicate balance between SDGs and IPRs relies on fostering innovation that rewards creators and ensuring accessibility to IP when trying to achieve SDGs. For further reading, WIPO has great lists of resources on this topic.
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