The need to achieve technological breakthroughs to provide cleaner, more efficient sources of energy may indeed be the race-to-the-moon for this generation of American inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs.
Clean energy technologies will come in hundreds of variations and will take billions to develop, test and deploy. To sustain this model there must be a global marketplace where intellectual property (IP) and innovation are rewarded according to economic drivers such as value, quality and demand. In essence, the clean energy revolution will only be as effective in solving our energy needs worldwide as the determination to promote and protect the underlying IP.
A proliferation of national strategies to promote the clean energy industry will develop, but there must also be a global approach that prioritizes real world impact while respecting IP and the innovation process.
What must some of the first steps in this global approach be?
- Respect IP. Sentiment among some organizations and countries is that any product or innovation that improves human well-being should be made freely available or taken from the owner under a “compulsory license” arrangement. But the necessary major investments in research and development will only be made if the ability to protect these investments is respected.
- Avoid using protectionist policies such as tariffs to create national champions at the expense of deploying important technologies quickly.
- Seek efficiencies in moving innovations to the market. A major first step the U.S. can take is educating and equipping patent offices around the world to understand and effectively assess increasingly complex clean energy-related applications.
Policymakers must ensure a global environment that respects and rewards the innovation and IP protection necessary to meet the energy challenges of the future so that American innovators and entrepreneurs who have time and again proven their ability to take on huge challenges and deliver breathtaking solutions, can do it again.