Community Knowledge Adaptation Technologies and Intellectual Property Rights

Adaptation and mitigation are two important tools to battle against climate change. It means combating climate change requires widespread innovation and transfer of both adaptation and mitigation technologies. However, the global law and policy regime on climate change is still more focused on mitigation than that of adaptation. Consequently, innovation and transfer of new adaptation technologies lag behind in comparison with innovation and transfer of mitigation technologies. Investors or research organizations are also reluctant to invest in identifying or developing adaptation technologies since mostly ‘knowledge’ or ‘know how’ based ‘software’ kinds of adaptation technologies are not entitled to receive intellectual property (IP) protection. This paper assesses possibilities of bringing community knowledge and traditional knowledge ‘soft’ adaptation technologies under modern Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) system. The assessment was done on the basis of the following three criteria - the nature of ownership, the nature of the object which is protected, and the term of protection. The study finds that if no modification takes place, the existing IPRs system might not suitably protect community knowledge adaptation technologies