US Continues To Whine About Other Nations Not Following Our Draconian Intellectual Property Regime
from the perhaps-because-it's-bad-for-them? dept
As expected, the US government placed a bunch of countries on a special "watch list," saying they haven't been doing enough to protect American intellectual property. This whole thing is something of a charade. As Michael Geist has noted, the whole process is "a biased analysis of foreign law supported by a well-orchestrated lobby effort." Basically, the US starts shoving other countries around telling them those countries aren't obeying US law -- even though those countries aren't subject to US law. Some will point out that these countries need to abide by these laws to live up to international treaties, but that's a red herring. Many of the treaties were pushed through by the same lobbyists who are now complaining and without the countries having much of a choice, or a realization of what those treaties actually meant. The fact is, almost all of these countries are making reasoned decisions concerning what's best for their citizens, and that doesn't have to support the views of some US industries. Of course, the more the US complains about what's happening in these countries, the more likely the complaining will backfire. It's simply going to encourage these countries to search out alternative routes that are likely to hurt the US economy even more. If the US government actually took the time to understand why these countries weren't following some of the more draconian practices of American IP law, perhaps they'd recognize that the problem may be with our laws -- not with the way others are ignoring them.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Squeeze Play
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Re: Squeeze Play
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Re: Re: Squeeze Play
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Re: Re: Re: Squeeze Play
Impose the level one solution on A.
Impose the level two solution on B.
Impose the level three solution C.
E will go back to A to impose the level three solution on it in order to catch them up to C.
Impose the level four solution on D.
E will then back to impose the level 5 solution on A-C in order to catch them up.
And so on and so on...
Its a vicious game of coproate leapfrog.
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Re: Re: Re: Squeeze Play
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Irrelevant
Nothing.
The IP-mavens do NOT have altruistic motives; they are simply concerned with the bottom-lines of their constituents...
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Copycat Nation
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/videonews/fnn/20070502/20070502-00000905-fnn-int.html
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US Corp seeks to patent the pig...
This corp wants a patent on the breeding method, the pig and all the offspring. There is nothing new here. The pig is not GE (yet). The 'invention' is simply a combination of existing breeding methods.
Unfortunately most pigs in the world (over 160 countries) will be covered by this patent and most pigs contain these desirable genetic markers (for 'meatiness', growth rate ect).
This corp also patents grains. Releases the GM grain into a country, even if the patent is not approved.
If the grain is later exported (from a country that does not allow living organisms to be patened) to a country that does, then the importer of the grain is sued for damages.
This has a chilling effect on grain exports from countries that do not allow living organisms to be patened (as there is no way to prove that the grain is not from GM seed but from cross pollination).
Not to mention that this corp has tried to patent traditionally bred wheat from India and soy plants from China.
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OMG !
*wanders to hill to howl at the moon*
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Squeeze Play
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Re: Squeeze Play
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Re: Re: Squeeze Play
Maybe it would be "better" (ethical) if 10 year old african children killed each other with M-16's?
Sorry for troll feeding everyone.
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Re: Re: Squeeze Play
like a whole bunch of products sold in the United States (including products from American companies) are not at least partially made by children...
And unless those AK-47's are made by children, they're not even relevant, nor is whether Russia is the world's largest exporter of arms (btw, how did you Americans manage to loose that title?)
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Re: Re: Re: Squeeze Play
My brother and I worked in fish processing when we were teen-agers. I believe that my brother was 14 at the time. We did it for the spending cash. No one was forcing us to. Now, thanks to child labor laws, we would not be allowed to do that. IMHO, there is nothing wrong with kids working to earn money as long as they are not being abused or forced to work.
As far as I know, we haven't. That's kind of weird when you consider the fact that the AK-47 is, in many ways, superior to the M-16. If I had to go into a war zone with limited support, I know which one I would choose.
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Re: Re: Squeeze Play
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America is da debil!!!!
Can we agree that America is then left with intellectual property to export?
If we can agree on this how exactly is insisting other nations do a better job protecting our companies rights to not have its exports stolen a bad thing? For that matter how is it any different from Korea complaining if America decided to impose a 10% tariff on all Korean imports?
Actually if you look at trademark and patent infringement in China that tariff would actually need to be around 60%.
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Try it here
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I think the point is...
Our patent system is screwed up. Period.
Look at the Verizon case, where they have patents for VOIP that they CLEARLY should never have gotten, yet they did. So not only do they have what should be an invalid patent but we should make sure that it is protected overseas?
I'm not saying that there we shouldn't protect our intellectual property, as we should. We need to make sure that the things we are protecting are right, though.
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Time to develop a competitive advantage
Diddling around patenting business methods and the blindingly obvious just skirts around the fact that the US no longer designs, develops or manufactures anything that the rest of the world wants to buy, and its economy is currently propped up by Asians lending them money to buy stuff they either can no longer make or don't need from, well, Asians, meaning that America is predominantly a nation of shop assistants.
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Pots and kettles
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds160_e.htm
and has shown no sign of planning to fix that.
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Separating copyright from patents
Copyrights however mostly deal with finished original products that are intellectual assets.
If a company or individual creates a book, movie, song, computer program and spends the money to develop it, create it, and sell it via some form of media I think they have the right to be the sole company or individual to sell it.
I don't know if its the lobbyists or the politicians who clump these concepts together, but its rather clear that these are two battles that need to be fought separately.
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Arms Export
Not that this has anything to do with IP.
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IP laws and online gambling
In an article on Slate.com, Henry Lanman argues that Antigua has as much right to enforce their laws on us as we do on them. And if Antigua is not allowed to enforce their online gambling laws on the US, then Antigua can ask the WTO to let them disregard US laws... including IP. And if Antigua doesn't recognize US IP laws, then would mean you could legally purchase Windows, or any other software, or DVD's, or movies.
http://www.slate.com/id/2153352/
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Re: IP laws and online gambling
Sure, why not? That would be kind of funny to watch. It would be even funnier if Antigua won.
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US Continues To Whine About Other Nations Not Foll
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So tired of US Government working against it's own
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