Buried throughout the text of a climate change bill that Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry introduced this month are no fewer than 17 references to U.S. companies’ intellectual property rights and the necessity of protecting them.

It’s a testament to the low-profile, highly complicated and perhaps unlikely role that patent law is playing as U.S. negotiators in Copenhagen and lawmakers back in the House and Senate try to negotiate a global climate deal and a U.S. emissions cap.

Many developing countries, including China, have argued that if they agree to cap carbon emissions, they should get access to the kind of technology that rich countries have had a head start in developing.