Deproprietarization. Fast Technology Avalanche versus Slow Technology Diffusion
The current state of the intellectual property in global scale is not economically effective because it does not ensure an equitable balance between rewarding and diffusing innovation (Drahos & Braithwaite, 2002). According to these authors, this is the state of information feudalism or rather, taking into account the available information monopolies, oligopolies and cartels (once again see Drahos & Braithwaite, 2002: chapters 10 & 11), the state of oligopolistic capitalism.
Additionally, regulatory pressure on the intellectual property in global scale is continiously strengthening with strong selective pressure on developing countries (Drahos, 2005).
Speaking figuratively, current regulatory policy in the area of intellectual property at the global and national levels is similar to an obstruction of fictional conventionalities with artificially created obstacles. And we have no wish to disassemble this obstruction. We call simply to breach this obstruction. One of the possible ways is redeeming with discount the promising green patents in favour of the United Nations that makes the protected technologies free accessible for all members of the global communtity.
Overall, this is the moving towards the modern paradigm in the area of intellectual property well known under such mottos as Open Source, Open Access and Open Patent with numerous derivatives (e.g., overviews by Hall & Helmers, 2010; van Hoorebeek & Onzivu, 2010). An outstanding global movement under the name United Green Nations: Humanity Green Heritage. Green Technologies Across Borders is launched (in 2011) to mobilize public (through mobilizing and crowfunding Causes service integrated into Facebook) under Open Patent motto. In fact, the project of redeeming green patents (Redeems with Discount, R$D) is the newest stronger extention of such well known initiatives as Eco-Patent Commons offered by IBM, Nokia and other world leading corporations, Biological Open Source (BiOS) by Cambia and similars. At the ethical level, we are standing in solidarity with Drahos & Braithwaite’ (2002) fundamental position, according to which in respect to our case the most advanced green technologies should originate and constitute free-for-all, common for all mankind green heritage.
Among necessary sources to fund green redeeming, centralized sources, such as Green Climate Fund (Driesen & Popp, 2010), and booming crowdfunding (Clowton & Marom, 2010) should be taken into consideration foremost.
Yet, transfer (in our case, through redeeming) of disembodied technologies is more important for commonweal than transfer of embodied technologies (embodied into industrial equipment, consumer goods and services), because disembodied technologies provide knowledge spillovers (Driesen & Popp, 2010).
It is necessary to underline also that the R$D approach can be used in respect of software and general copyrighted information, in addition to patents. In these cases, we have redeeming versions of Open Source, Open Access and Open Patent subparadigms instead of their widely endorsed voluntary versions.