The Elgar Companion to Intellectual Property and the Sustainable Development Goals

This book is a thorough examination of how intellectual property (IP) interfaces with each of the seventeen sustainable development goals, which, in turn, seek to secure a sustainable social, economic and environmental future for humanity. Each chapter explains the relevant area of IP law and interrogates how its application impacts a specific sustainable development goal. Going beyond the innovation focus of most discussions of IP and sustainable development the chapters bring other areas into sharp focus. These include IP’s role in ending poverty and inequality, improving food security, ensuring a sustainable environment and supporting health and well-being through access to medicines, better regulating gene patents and reducing tobacco consumption. It also focuses on trade, gender, disability rights, water rights, green technologies, health emergencies and fourth industrial revolution technologies. This book will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, regulators and policy makers interested in the intersections between IP and sustainable development, and in pushing the 2030 Agenda forward