Advanced Biofuels and Developing Countries: Intellectual Property Scenarios and Policy Implications

Chapter III analysed the commercial viability of second generation biofuels. This chapter focuses on related intellectual property rights (IPRs) aspects. Three hypothetical scenarios in the context of the intellectual property protection of second generation biofuels are developed, with each scenario representing a different level of strictness of protection. Therefore, each scenario translates into a different level of potential access to advanced biofuel technologies by developing countries. Second generation biofuels can be classified in terms of the process used to convert biomass into fuel: biochemical or thermochemical. Second generation ethanol or butanol would be made via biochemical processing. Second generation thermochemical biofuels may be less familiar to readers, but many represent fuels that are already being made commercially from fossil fuels using processing steps that in some cases are identical to those that would be used for biofuel production. These fuels include methanol, Fischer-Tropsch liquids (FTL) and dimethyl ether (DME) (Larson, 2007).