IP Justice Statement at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP)’s Twenty-Seventh Session (20-26 November 2021)

IP Justice urges the WIPO to provide more easily understandable resources for identifying available inventions in the public domain.  For the public to have greater access to the public domain inventions, they have to know what innovations have been released into the public domain. 

There is a profound digital divide and deep technology abyss between wealthy countries and developing countries.  Many developing countries lack the wifi or the digital devices to engage in education and lessons.  Many dominant countries have monopolization over key intellectual property.  Especially now, in a pandemic, reliance on the internet and technology to deliver daily activities makes this inequality even more acute.  Development policy, therefore, has to be integrated into intellectual property protection. 

This year’s Committee focuses on Innovation in Green Technologies for Sustainable Development, Identifying and Using Inventions in Public Domain, etc. IP Justice would like to comment on the following topics: Green Energy Equity and opening up training data for supporting the use of AI in developing countries. 

Currently, there is an entrenched imbalance of available technology for sustainability development in low-income and developing countries.  However, these countries are at the most vulnerable edge of climate change.  Many key renewable energy companies do not have technology transfer to the global south.  Making sustainable development only accessible to wealthy countries will run contrary to the goal of green development.  Without a global-scale adoption, a green sustainable future will not be possible. 

We hope that the developing countries will also have access to training data on the development of AI.  Many copyrighted, trademarked, and patented content is not currently available to build AI models for developing countries to improve health diagnostics, wildfire mapping, food preservation, etc.  These developing countries need available data for innovative automation more than many developed countries.  Identifying and using inventions in the public domain has a vital role in making content available for training life-saving AI in developing and low-income countries. 

Technology should leave no one behind.