Intellectual Property Regimes & Green Industrialisation · Briefing note · 2026

The IP chokepoints
around green value chains.

Public debate on green industrialisation rests on an assumption: that the technology is on the shelf, market-priced, open to anyone who can pay. The evidence does not support it. What follows are four findings, each opening a question that the next one answers, and, at the end, what they imply for policy.

Paulo Esteves · IRI/PUC-Rio

1Green patents are concentrated in five jurisdictions. 2Value chains have tighter and thinner links, and developing countries are already in the thinner ones. 3Chokepoints are built with different mechanisms. 4Policies open routes of access, and the route depends on the mechanism.
Finding 1 of 4 · The patent landscape

Green patents are concentrated in five jurisdictions.

The technology is not on the shelf. The IPC Green Inventory turns WIPO's classification system into a lens for reading PATENTSCOPE, and what appears is a structure of heavy concentration by country and over time.

The question it opensHow does this concentration condition the industrial policies of developing countries?

FIG 1 · Top-4 and top-10 country concentration, by topic
Source: PATENTSCOPE / IPC Green Inventory (Esteves et al., 2026)
First finding: green patents are concentrated in five jurisdictions. Our corpus, drawn from PATENTSCOPE through the IPC Green Inventory, holds 368,266 unique green patent publications across eight topic areas. 368,266 Deduplicated publication numbers · all years · counts are lower bounds It is the most systematic map available of who holds claims over climate-critical technology.
Read as a dominance ratio, four jurisdictions hold between 74 and 92 per cent of them in every topic; ten hold between 93 and 99. 93%+ CR4: combined share of the four leading jurisdictions. CR10: combined share of the ten leading jurisdictions. Alternative energy production, the largest topic with 172,346 publications, is also the least concentrated among the energy topics, and even there four countries hold 82 per cent.
The same five recur: China, the United States, Japan, Korea and the European system. India and Brazil appear in a few topics; South Africa, Mexico and Indonesia not at all. The consequence for industrial policy is direct: a developing country does not choose between technologies on a market. It negotiates access to what five jurisdictions hold. So where in the chain is that access decided?
Finding 2 of 4 · IP along the value chains · first movement

Value chains have links with tighter and links with thinner protection.

Second finding, in two movements. First movement: protection along a chain is uneven. If we read the patent corpus chain by chain, we get six geographies of control, each of them with a stage where control is tight and a stage where protection thins and the value is still significant. Take wind, the running example of this piece. The turbine core is locked: nacelle, blade and converter, and the type certificate that travels with them. The tower and the site are open: tower fabrication, balance of plant, installation and twenty-five years of operation. The other five chains have the same shape: the cell cluster in solar, the stack in hydrogen, the shaft furnace in steel, the cell in batteries, the high-voltage core in grids; and below each, an open layer. Those thinner links are the entry points. Choose any chain to read its profile.

The question it opensWhich entry points are open to developing countries?

Chain
FIG 2 · Control profile · Wind energy
Each row is a stage of the chain. The first bar is the stage's approximate share of chain value; the second is how tightly the stage is held. Read the two together: the stage that carries the value is rarely the one that decides access.
Share of chain value Thin control Contested Tight control
Sources: stage value shares are order-of-magnitude estimates from IEA, OECD and industry analyses, not additive across chains; control is the project's qualitative classification of each stage, drawn from the PATENTSCOPE corpus and the audited chain reports. See Sources.
Finding 2 of 4 · IP along the value chains · second movement

Developing countries are already positioning themselves in the thinner links.

Second movement: they are, and the entries work. Stay with wind. Brazil entered through the tower, the nacelle and the blade, and exports them regionally; the ceiling above it is the type certificate and the long-term service agreement that keeps the software keys. Mexico entered through contract blade moulding at Ciudad Juárez; the ceiling above it is the patent on the blade and on the grid-code converter. Same chain, two entry points, two different ceilings, made of different things. The other cards say the same in other chains, and they also show the limit: Indonesia refines 45 per cent of the world's nickel, holds 10 per cent of the battery-grade step, and most refining assets on its soil are Chinese-owned. Position without ownership. Above each entry sits a ceiling; each ladder marks the rung occupied and the ceiling above it, and the colour of the ceiling anticipates the third finding.

The question it opensWhat IP chokepoints will they meet when they seek to upgrade along the chain?

Country
Indonesia refines 45 per cent of the world's nickel and holds 10 per cent of the battery-grade step, and Chinese firms own most of the refining assets on its soil. Position without ownership is what a thin entry looks like when the ceiling is not addressed.
— IEA, Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026
Finding 3 of 4 · Chokepoints and typology

Chokepoints are built with different mechanisms: productive capacity, IP and norm-setting.

Third finding. A chokepoint is a segment that cannot be replaced at reasonable cost and time, and three mechanisms sustain it: productive capacity, IP, and norm-setting. IP runs through all three types. What varies from chain to chain is not the strength of the block but the mechanism that sustains it, and that mechanism decides which policy can reach it.

The question it opensWhich policies are adequate to promote upgrading and to confront the chokepoints?

Capacityproductive infrastructure: the qualified plant, the furnace, the refinery
IPundisclosed information (TRIPS Art. 39) or patent (Art. 31)
Normativestandard, type certificate, qualified bill of materials, contract
FIG 3 · Which type binds, chain by chain
Tap a cell to read the segment it names.
Source: project chain reports (solar, wind, hydrogen, audited September 2026); PATENTSCOPE corpus; chain cards of the briefing note.
Set the six chains against the three types and ask which one binds: which prevents entry even once the other two have been overcome. Rows are chains; the first three columns are the types of IP chokepoint; the fourth is the residue outside the typology. Each cell names the segment that mechanism governs.
Type 1 · Capacity + IP. Type one combines capacity and IP: the crucible qualification, the magnet sintering, the catalyst coating, the process behind a membrane whose patent expired in the 1960s. A trade secret under Article 39 that lives inside the qualified plant, and no licence reaches it. No compulsory licence reaches it; the patent corpus cannot see it. Only absorption does.
Type 2 · IP alone. Type two is IP alone, the patent in the strict sense: TOPCon cells, the grid-code converter, the direct-reduction furnace, the battery cell. Scale and certification are present, but the binding mechanism is the patent. The only type reached by Article 31 and the flexibilities. In these chains it is the smallest of the three, and where asserted it has proved unstable.
Type 3 · IP + Normative. Type three combines IP and the norm: the type certificate, the standard with essential patents, the qualified bill of materials, the packaged process licence, the service agreement with the software keys. The norm turns a protected component into a condition of entry. A licence does not clear it; a certificate does. It has no multilateral forum of its own, and it decides who can be financed.
Outside the typology. The interconnection queue, the power purchase agreement, the installation vessel, the rights over land and revenue. Chokepoints, not IP chokepoints: capacity and rule without IP, regulatory and contractual, and they answer to different instruments. In solar this residue carries most of the cost of a watt, 60.6 per cent of installed CAPEX, while the three most patent-dense segments carry 5.7 per cent.
Now read the wind row from left to right, because it has all four: the sintered magnet, Type 1; the blade and the grid-code, Type 2; the certificate, the service contract and the keys, Type 3, the one that binds; and the installation vessel, outside the typology. The binding type is a property of the entry point, not of the chain: entering through the tower meets the vessel; through the blade, the patent; through the nacelle, the certificate; through the magnet, the secret. Four policy problems inside one chain.
Set the six chains against the three types and ask which one binds. IP alone binds in batteries, and partly in wind and steel. Capacity and IP binds in hydrogen. IP and the norm binds in solar and in grids. Filled dot: the type that binds. Dashed ring: binds in part. Four policy problems inside one chain; no single instrument can answer them. Which policies fit which type?
The political question shifts from who may copy to who may certify. Whoever holds no portfolio does not negotiate, and whoever is not qualified does not sell, even where copying is legally permitted.
— On the limits of the flexibilities
Finding 4 of 4 · The policy map

Policies adopted by developing countries create access routes within value chains.

Fourth finding: the policies developing countries adopt do open routes of access inside the chains, and the route depends on what the ceiling is made of. Brazil's ceiling is Type 3, certificate and contract, so the route runs through contract and standard: the certificate held by the project company, not only by the supplier; the service software in escrow, so the keys are released if the supplier walks away; know-how transfer as a condition of the investment approval; and a funded seat where the IEC standards are written. Mexico's ceiling is Type 2, a patent, so the route is the one the IP regime already offers: freedom-to-operate analysis to know which claims are in force in Mexico, then a licence for those, and the flexibilities where the case can be made. Type 1, the magnet, is a secret inside a plant; no licence reaches it, only supplier development and joint ventures with operations. The question shifts from who may copy to who may certify.

The question it opensWhat has to exist for developing countries to build and combine those routes together, rather than one capital at a time?

One domestic element, three international ones

Upgrading at home; cooperation, coordination and coalition abroad.

Put together, that is the policy map. One domestic element, value-chain upgrading, whose first tool is freedom to operate; and three international elements: cooperation aimed at capability rather than equipment, coordination over purchases and export terms, and coalition for localisation. The health field gives the condition for the third: pooling works when something is attached to it.

For discussion · The answer to the fourth question

A community of practice.

The domestic route is what a state can do alone and slowly; the three international routes are what no state can do alone at all, and the map fails if it is read as a menu rather than as a sequence held together. Working the thin points is a way of operating inside a structure while the structure holds, not an accommodation with the IP regime.

None of this is executable one capital at a time: landscaping presupposes a search capability few ministries have, coordination presupposes knowing what a neighbour is tendering before the tender closes, a coalition presupposes positions settled before the room where they are contested. What the four findings point to is a standing community of practice among developing countries, where policies are designed and positions coordinated between negotiations, and where the capability to read a chain and negotiate a ceiling is built once and shared.

Sources and method

Where the numbers come from.

Patent records were retrieved from WIPO's PATENTSCOPE using IPC queries aligned to the IPC Green Inventory. The analytical dataset contains 368,266 unique publication numbers drawn from 451,110 merged records, grouped into eight topic areas. Concentration metrics (HHI, CR4, CR10) were computed on country shares of deduplicated publications within each topic. Chain-level shares filter the corpus by IPC Green Inventory subtopic; hydrogen is proxied by the fuel-cells subtopic and green steel by carbon capture and storage, since the Inventory classifies neither separately, and both proxies undercount. Chain-stage value shares are order-of-magnitude estimates and are not additive across chains; the bottom-up cost reconstructions of the solar, wind and hydrogen chains use different denominators (installed CAPEX, levelised cost of energy and delivered cost respectively) and are cited where used. Patent counts measure ownership claims, not technological capability. A companion fact-check document records the verification status of every figure in this piece and the discrepancies between sources.

Patent corpus and concentration

  1. WIPO PATENTSCOPE, retrieved through the IPC Green Inventory; 368,266 deduplicated publications (Esteves et al., 2026). Counts are lower bounds.
  2. Esteves, P. et al. (2026), Intellectual Property Regimes and Green Industrialisation, manuscript and briefing note, Equal International.
  3. EPO and IEA (2021), Patents and the Energy Transition; EPO and IRENA (2023), Offshore Wind Energy: Patent Insight Report; EPO and IEA (2023), Hydrogen Patents for a Clean Energy Future.

Value chains and control

  1. IEA, Renewables 2025 (October 2025) and Energy Technology Perspectives 2026 (March 2026): China's share of solar manufacturing capacity by stage; module, nacelle and blade shares.
  2. IEA, Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026: nickel refining and battery-grade sulphate shares.
  3. USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: iron-ore share (author's calculation); platinum-group metals.
  4. IRENA, Solar PV Supply Chain Cost Tool and Solar PV Manufacturing Cost Model v1 (2026); NREL/DOE, Q1-2025 Solar PV System Cost Benchmarks.
  5. NREL, 2022 Cost of Wind Energy Review (NREL/TP-5000-88335); US DOE, Rare Earth Permanent Magnets: Supply Chain Deep Dive Assessment (2022); MOFCOM/GAC, Announcement No. 18 of 4 April 2025.
  6. Hydrogen Council, Path to Hydrogen Competitiveness (2020); DOE/HFTO, Water Electrolyzer Installations (2024); IRENA, Green Hydrogen Cost Reduction (2020); US DOE, Water Electrolyzers and Fuel Cells Supply Chain Deep Dive (2022).
  7. Midrex Technologies, World Direct Reduction Statistics 2024: MIDREX share of world DRI and of shaft-furnace output.
  8. Project chain reports: Value concentration and intellectual property in the solar PV chain (cut-off 2 September 2026, audited); in the wind chain (audited 2 September 2026); in the hydrogen chain (audited 4 September 2026).

Litigation, standards and corporate events

  1. USITC, Investigation 337-TA-1494 (instituted March 2026); PTAB final written decisions of 17 April 2026; CNIPA invalidation (May 2026); EPO Board of Appeal, revocation of EP 2 220 689 (17 July 2026); Maxeon and AIKO joint announcement (6 February 2026) and Maxeon Form 6-K.
  2. Kenetech v. Enercon, ITC Inv. 337-TA-376 (1996) and Enercon GmbH v. ITC, 151 F.3d 1376 (Fed. Cir. 1998); GE–Enercon cross-licence (2004); GE v. MHI, ITC Inv. 337-TA-641 and settlement of 16 December 2013; Siemens Gamesa v. GE, D. Mass. 1:21-cv-10216 (2022) and cross-licences (April 2023).
  3. IECRE, OD-501 Type and Component Certification Scheme and certificate template OD-501-T01 (2024); IEC 61400 series; IEC 62852 and TR 63225:2019; ISO 19870-1:2026, 14687:2025, 19880, 19881.
  4. Corporate disclosures: Samsung SDI–Fusion (2020); DuPont Solamet–DKEM (2021); Heraeus Photovoltaics–Haitian (2025); Johnson Matthey–Honeywell, Catalyst Technologies (17 July 2026); Wood Mackenzie (2021, 2026); TPI Composites–Vestas, Mexican plants (July 2026).

Entry points and policy precedents

  1. IEA, Energy Technology Perspectives 2026 and Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026; South Africa IPP Office (REIPPPP); company and government announcements for Camaçari, Cuautitlán, San Luis Potosí, Ciudad Juárez, OR Tambo and Coega. The Coega ammonia project is pre-final-investment-decision.
  2. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 (Critical Raw Materials Act), Article 25; European Commission, AggregateEU; PAHO Revolving Fund; Medicines Patent Pool, annual reports and licence register; WHO C-TAP; UNFCCC TEC and CTCN Joint Annual Report 2025.
  3. WTO, Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, Articles 31 and 39.

Citation

Esteves, P. (2026). The IP Chokepoints Around Green Value Chains, interactive companion to the briefing note on Intellectual Property Regimes and Green Industrialisation. Brighton: Equal International.

Acknowledgements

This piece was written by Paulo Esteves and developed through a co-creation process with the research team: Angela Apedoh, Ross Coppin, Paulo Esteves, Anton Ofield-Kerr and Daniel Rogers.

We thank the members of the Advisory Group on IPR and Green Industrialisation for their time, expertise and constructive guidance: Rupa Chanda, Carlos Maria Correa, Khalil Elouardighi, Caroline B. Ncube, Simon Ng'ang'a Njuguna, Mxolisi Sibanda, Shamika Sirimanne, Fabby Tumiwa and Robin Varghese. The Advisory Group's role is to guide and to challenge the enquiry, not to endorse its conclusions. Responsibility for the analysis and for any errors rests with the research team alone.