IP and Climate Change

My colleague and friend Josh Sarnoff (DePaul) sent me a review copy of the book he edited: Intellectual Property and Climate Change, even though I told him I wouldn't have much time to look at it. Wouldn't you know, on a quick skim I found it pretty interesting, and thought I would talk about it a bit.

The book is part of the Elgar Research Handbook series. I wrote a chapter that I really like (who am I kidding, I just love that book chapter) in the Research Handbook on Trade Secret Law. But because it's in an expensive book, nobody seems to know about it (and my colleagues in trade secret law will attest that I remind them whenever I review one of their drafts that is remotely in the area of trade secrets and incentives).

So, I thought I would flag this book, so readers would know this is out there. IP will have a growing role in climate change, as this cool story from this week illustrates. The book is comprehensive - it has 26 chapters from a variety of different authors. Some of the topics:

• International law and TRIPS
• Enforcement
• Technology transfer
• Innovation funding and university research
• Antitrust, patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks
• Rights in climate data
• Privacy (this one surprised me)
• Standards
• Energy, transportation, food, natural resources

There is something for everyone in this book. Though it is focused on climate change, much of the discussion can be generalized to other emerging areas of law. In that sense, it does present a little bit like the law of the horse, but given that this is a research handbook, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.