Geopiracy: Patent law, climate change, and geoengineering

Geopiracy: Patent law, climate change, and geoengineering

Patent law is a regime of intellectual property, which provides exclusive rights regarding scientific inventions, which are novel, inventive, and useful. There has been much debate over the limits of patentable subject matter relating to emerging technologies. The...
Corporate efforts to impede renewable energy

Corporate efforts to impede renewable energy

On 6 May 2004, the then prime minister of Australia, John Howard, and the then industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, were participating in a meeting of the Lower Emissions Technology Advisory Group, which comprised CEOs of the major fossil fuel producing and consuming...
Corporate influence over nanotechnology regulation

Corporate influence over nanotechnology regulation

I recently attended an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) seminar on the risk assessment and risk management of nanomaterials. This was an eye-opening experience that graphically illustrated the extent of corporate influence over...