When the conference delegates turned their attention to seabed mining, many proclaimed the great importance of the issue – from either a positive or negative perspective – declaring that it would underwrite a new international economic order, or present a fundamental threat to land-based mining industries, or exemplify the virtues of the free market. The problem was that no state knew how profitable seabed exploitation might be, or the technological challenges involved, or its potential effect on commodities markets. Because of this uncertainty, none of them wanted to put themselves at a potential disadvantage or forego future rewards, so the negotiations were particularly hard fought and protracted. One casualty would be the common heritage concept, replaced with the parallel system by the G5 powers, and with technology transfer by the G77 countries. Another casualty was the cooperation between the industrial powers, with some proposing anti-monopoly clauses and production quotas to protect their own mining concerns and constrain competitors. The outcome managed to displease every state, but most eventually signed the convention with the agreed seabed provisions in 1982.

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are confronted with a new world order in which the major economic powers that promoted multilateralism have moved toward nationalism, localization of production, and de-legalization of dispute settlement in favor of balance of power diplomacy. A counterpart to this trend is declining interest in developmental assistance. It remains to be determined how countries that are not part of the new great power dynamic will acclimate to this new world. LMICs have the opportunity to leapfrog in the current technological environment. A key challenge is securing adequate capital investment, including through the private sector. There is a trend among the capital-exporting countries to negotiate bilateral and plurilateral agreements with LMICs that preclude regulatory measures requiring technology transfer as a condition of foreign direct investment. Because individual private investors within LMICs may lack substantial bargaining power, these agreements diminish LMICs’ capacity to secure favorable terms for technology transfer. LMICs confront terms of trade that favor high-income countries and, more broadly, the ascendance of managed trade policy among economically powerful states. These factors portend the perpetuation of the marked disparity in the distribution of global income and wealth. There are no “magic bullet” solutions on the horizon.

This chapter looks forward by looking back, examining the local production of COVID-19 vaccines in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region. The focus is on technology transfer for local production. That is, while efforts to produce original, "home-grown" vaccines are discussed, attention is primarily directed at the production in LAC countries of the leading vaccines that were most used internationally. Through analysis of technology transfer, as well as the accompanying regulatory challenges, the chapter sheds light on the intense challenges involved with pandemic vaccine production in the Global South. To be sure, with LAC vaccination rates among the highest in the world by late 2022, the issues discussed in this chapter may appear not to be pressing any longer. But building production capabilities – and tapping into existing capabilities – has important implications for preparedness for future pandemics.

The protection of intellectual property (IP) is a question of life and death. COVID-19 vaccines, partially incentivized by IP, are estimated to have saved nearly 20 million lives worldwide during the first year of their availability in 2021. The vast majority of the benefit of this lifesaving technology, however, went to high- and upper-middle-income countries. Despite 10 billion vaccines having been produced by the end of 2021, only 4 percent of people in low-income countries were fully vaccinated. Paradoxically, IP may also be partly responsible for hundreds of thousands of lives lost in 2021, due to insufficient supply of vaccines and inequitable access during the critical first year of vaccine rollout, most notably in low-income countries that lacked the ability to buy or manufacture vaccines to save their populations. The contributors to this book diagnose a number of causes for the inequitable distribution of life-saving COVID-19 vaccines, from misguided reliance on intellectual property rights and voluntary mechanisms to share knowledge and vaccines, to the rise of vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy, to unequal global intellectual property institutions that disenfranchise low-income countries and continue to reproduce colonial era dependency by poor countries on high income nations for life-saving technologies. Global experts herein suggest several reforms to prevent such inequity in the next pandemic, including delinking vaccine development from monopoly rights in technology, enhanced legal requirements to share publicly-funded technologies in pandemic times, and investment in technology transfer hubs and local vaccine manufacturing capacity in low and middle-income countries.

This chapter proposes the establishment of a Patent Philanthropy Initiative (PPI) as an alternative approach to equipping the global community with better preparedness for future public health crises. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) would be called upon to administer the PPI. Pharmaceutical companies owning USPTO-granted medical patents would be required to contribute 1 percent of their annual post-tax profits accrued from their patented medicines to the PPI. Such financial contributions would then be deployed by pharmaceutical companies to promote public health in the United States and abroad through transferring knowledge, donating medical products, constructing facilities, training professionals, and facilitating public health education.

Energy technologies are ‘the combination of hardware, techniques, skills, methods and processes’ involved in ‘producing, transforming, storing, transporting and using energy’. The IEA database captures over 500 mature and immature ‘clean energy’ technologies worldwide that contribute to achieving the goal of net-zero emissions. This chapter will show that international economic law is applicable to government interventions in even the early stages of technology development. For example, State-imposed R&D investment obligations may be banned by IIA provisions on performance requirements, and public incentives for R&D may be disciplined by WTO subsidy rules. Once commercialized, green technologies can reach foreign markets due to international trade and technology transfers that fall within the scope of international economic rules. Reducing trade barriers to environmental goods and services could give a further boost to the international movement of energy-related green technologies. While the importance of green technology transfers between countries is widely recognized, trade and investment rules must be consulted when imposing technology transfer measures.

Chapter 1 examines the popular and official fascination with Amerikanizm in the Soviet Union. The term connotated not only a desire to acquire American technology, but to learn to emulate uniquely American know-how, efficiency, practicality, ingenuity, and energy. Overwhelmingly, the Soviet people who visited the United States in the 1930s came to study American technology. To take advantage of the tantalizing business opportunities offered by this Soviet interest, the US government and businesses put few restrictions on visiting engineers. Although Ilf and Petrov were writers – “engineers of human souls” rather than engineers – they too focused on the promises of American “technique” (tekhnika), positing that in Soviet hands the capitalists’ tools would serve the workers’ interests.

This chapter explores the links between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 (specifically targets 3.3, 3.8, and 3.b, which address the need to fight communicable diseases, achieve universal health coverage, and invest in research and development of vaccines and medicines, respectively) and SDG 9, which calls for the development of industry, innovation, and infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). By discussing two case studies, i.e., Brazil’s technology transfer strategy for the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine through a public–private partnership and the implementation of the Mozambican Pharmaceutical Ltd., a Brazil-Mozambique South-South cooperation (SSC) project, it argues that initiatives such as technology transfer and local production of pharmaceuticals in LMICs can be a means to promote industrial and innovation goals while meeting health needs. With significant variations between them, the two case studies illustrate the dynamic interaction between SDG 3 and SDG 9, helping to elucidate the co-benefits between health policy and measures to promote scientific and technological development. The chapter calls for further research to better understand which channels, governance arrangements, and mechanisms can promote effective coordination between healthcare and industrial development.

How do you read a patent and what subject matter is patentable? What is the purpose of a patent? Who is an inventor on the patent if work is done by many people on the project? What is the process of obtaining a patent in my country and globally? Read this chapter to see how you could lose commercialization rights to your own invention. When exactly does an invention or idea become patentable? Once you own a patent, how can you make money from it? What is the process of licensing and the key terms that should be negotiated in such a license agreement? What is the use of a copyright or a trade secret in biotech? What exactly constitutes patent infringement ? These questions and many others are addressed in this chapter on intellectual property.

Preparing for scale-up in commercial manufacturing is far away from the thoughts of companies involved in product development, but this chapter shows when to start planning and how to plan a practical budget for this activity. For companies with their first product in commercial development, the build vs buy decision is never an easy one and the examples and key points for consideration simplify that process. The biggest challenge in scaling up is the gap in culture between R&D production for experimental testing in preclinical stages and the control and quality oriented culture in the manufacturing location. The case studies and content in the chapter specifically highlight how to achieve a successful technology transfer into commercial GMP manufacturing. The chapter content also gives practical guidelines on what it takes to put GMP and quality systems in place.

Chapter 14 covers legal issues arising in the context of academic research and technology transfer. A brief history of university technology development and the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 are given, followed by a discussion of various issues that have arisen under the Act. The Act’s effect on ownership of IP is discussed with reference to Stanford v. Roche (2011). Its requirements for royalty sharing and US manufacturing are discussed. The area of march-in rights is illustrated through the dispute over Fabryzyme. Next focus shifts to the role of university technology transfer offices (TTOs) and ways that universities have attempted to shape university technology transfer over the years, including through the 2007 Nine Points document and the highlighting of issues such as reserved rights, limits on exclusivity, socially-responsible licensing and price controls. Next, other forms of university technology development agreement are discussed, including sponsored research and materials transfer agreements. The chapter concludes with a discussion of university policies relating to copyright.

Industrialization in China has followed complicated paths over the last century and a half. China, like Russia, Germany, and Japan, followed in the footsteps of the pioneering industrial nations. For the first pioneering generation, industrialization developed indigenously, building on preindustrial handicraft traditions, inventing new technologies using water and steam power, and creating new corporate management systems. The new technologies of steamships, railroads, the telegraph, and the telephone transformed transportation and communication networks. Private entrepreneurs played central roles in the development of the new industrial systems, aided by protective tariffs and other state measures designed to promote industrial and commercial development.