Roadmap of Regulatory Innovations by Intellectual Property Offices for the Governance of Green Innovation

The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for deliberate and context-sensitive policies for green sectors and for investment in the linkage science-policy-society to create public trust in science and innovation. In view of their relative autonomy, technical expertise and trustworthiness (Drahos 2009, Cooperation Trust and Risk), Intellectual Property Offices (IPOs) are in a position to be effective green innovation governance actors because they can offer policy mixes such as technology-push and systemic instruments (Söderholm 2020, The Green Economy Transition 2020, p. 7) to harness intellectual property (IP) rights towards stimulating green innovation. IPOs are in the first place agencies responsible for governing IP rights, examining applications and granting IP rights, including patents, designs, trademarks and copyright. Some IPOs may traditionally have only limited mandates and limited personnel to craft public policies (Tran 2012, Policy Tailors in the Patent Office, p. 507). Nevertheless, in practice increasingly IPOs go beyond examining and granting IP rights, prioritizing green innovation applications or delivering services that specifically support it. With this contribution the author will present the main findings from a mapping exercise of the relevant IP governance literature and reports on the global IPOs with most patent applications (WIPO Intellectual Property Indicators 2022). The initiatives that were identified have subsequently been used for legal analysis and organized in clusters focusing on (1) strengthening the institutional mandate towards knowledge transfer and stimulating green innovation; (2) facilitating the use and interoperability of classification systems for green technologies; (3) offering pre-grant services; (4) offering post-grant services; (5) partnering with other national governmental actors, other IPOs and international IP organizations; and (6) exchanging expertise. This systematic analysis and comparison will enable us to delineate governance mechanisms contributing to the availability, accessibility and affordability of green technologies and to showcase transformative institutional practices undertaken by IPOs.