Home // ICDS 2025, The Nineteenth International Conference on Digital Society // View article
Authors:
Richard Schilling
Keywords: smart cities; governance; United Nations (UN); World Economic Foru (WEF).
Abstract:
This paper examines how public-private partnerships in smart city development may impose compulsory spending through intellectual property costs, impacting local fiscal autonomy and increasing taxpayer burdens. While existing research often highlights the benefits of smart city projects, the assignment of intellectual property rights, particularly patents, remains under-explored. This paper investigates how public-private partnerships in one city can result in assignment of intellectual property rights, and how that in turn can establish mechanisms for compulsory spending in many other cities. Furthermore, this article suggests that such compulsory spending can impact local fiscal autonomy and increase taxpayer burdens. Scenarios where the same investor groups finance multiple projects across different jurisdictions are analyzed, raising concerns about monopolistic control over essential technologies through strategic patent portfolios. This paper concludes that the financial implications for local taxpayers, who ultimately bear the burden and risk of these projects, are frequently overlooked. A framework is proposed to help stakeholders identify such scenarios.
Pages: 1 to 8
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025
Publication date: May 18, 2025
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2308-3956
ISBN: 978-1-68558-267-8
Location: Nice, France
Dates: from May 18, 2025 to May 22, 2025