Slashdot Mirror

Some googling around finds:

* Re: "Double" Licenses--enforceability of shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses

* WASHINGTON COURT OF APPEALS UPHOLDS ENFORCABILITY OF "SHRINK-WRAP" SOFTWARE LICENSES

* Shrink-wrap software licenses upheld

* Contractor Denied Recovery for $1.95 Million Bidding Error Caused by Allegedly Defective Software

* CPT's Page on the Enforceability of Shrinkwrap Licenses

* ProCD, Inc. v. Zeidenberg, 86 F.3D 1447 (7th Cir., June 20, 1996). This
phone directory data case is important because it validates the legality of
"shrink wrap" software licenses for the first time. This case suggests that
similar "on screen acceptance" licenses, now commonly used on the Internet,
may also be upheld as legal someday. The phone directory database at issue
in this case was not protected by copyright, but was protected by contract.
So the person who published ProCD's phone directories on the Internet was
found to have breached the shrink wrap license agreement that came with the
software.

* In Bowers v. Baystate Technologies Inc., 64 USPQ2d 1065 (CA FC 2002), the Federal Circuit has upheld a contractual no-reverse engineering restriction in an agreement between two parties in a software license that was characterized by the court as shrink wrap.

Just because they did the research means nothing because they would not have been able to do it in the first place without government grants. I think they could care less for the odd million research grant considering we're talking about 100s of millions here.

I was perhaps over-generalizing in my initial post. Of course, R&D depends on funding, wherever it comes from, and each drug would have to be analyzed separately. I found a pretty good source on U.S. Government Role in Health Care R&D. Saying that, however, there are quite a few pharmaceutical projects that rely (or have relied) heavily on government grants.

I think Novartis usually posts about 15 to 20% gross margin, meaning they could lower their prices somewhat, but price gouging they aren't. Not as badly as people like MS at least.

[testimony by an accused gangster] "Yes, your honor, I've broken some people's kneecaps, roughed 'em up a little, but at least I ain't killed nobody like Jimmy the Weasel."

Saying, "Hey, those people over there break the law more than I do" is not a valid argument for the accused's innocence.

This page contains a lot of the information your looking for. Other random evidence cam be found Here and here and other places on the web.

... ignore the fact that MS has been a fantastic patent citizen and has never, to my knowledge, enforced dubious patents ...

You mean Microsoft really didn't stomp out an open source asf project due their patented file format?

And as far as I can tell Klocek v. Gateway is the latest case saying shrinkwrap agreements aren't worth the bits they flip.

This an interesting collection of some related cases.

This is sort of debatable, whether or not such things are enforceable. This site has a buttload of examples (and the page is even reasonably balanced) -- there's lots of debate as to whether or not checkboxes and that kind of stuff is really legally enforceable. There's probably lots on ./ too about this, but I'm too lazy/tired to look.

The Consumer Project on Technology does a lot of work around patents, particularly business methods patents and patents that restrict access to medicine. They aren't well funded.

Public Knowledge is a new group that does work in the IP area. They are more focused on copyright at the moment but work on patent issues as well. They are better funded and more focused on IP issues.

I've been a /.er for a few years and decided it was time to get involved as opposed to only replying on /. -

See my site at http://victormarks.org - unfortunately you won't see my stance on IP issues/copyright law on that page, simply because as a state representative, it's a non-issue- those laws are made in US congress, not the state legislature.

Instead, state legislatures get to deal with laws concering EULAs, ( http://www.cptech.org/ecom/ucita/ ), laws concerning model health acts , ( http://www.disinfo.com/pages/article/id2454/pg1/ ) and other threats to our rights to live our lives without intrusion.

Tara really latched onto Coble's prominent "I've-been-bought" issue, and has done well with it- however, the Coble bill isn't going to go anywhere- even Republican candidates I know are writing Coble telling him to put it to rest.

Vote Libertarian! http://victormarks.org

I concur with smiff. Besides, pharmaceuticals already get tax credits to develop drugs for rare diseases. I suspect the tax credit approach is much more effective.

The United States Government Does NOT Issue Frivolous Patents -- All patent applications for all industries are reviewed by trained Examiners

The United States Government Does NOT Issue Frivolous Patents -- All patent applications for all industries are reviewed by trained Examiners

Most tech journalists fail to understand this -- evidenced by the ever-popular "New EULA Disclaims Implied Warranty of Merchantability!" articles.

Most EULAs do not contain new, inventive or clever language. After all, they're essentially standard form contracts -- otherwise known as boilerplate -- meaning that one choice of forum/ anti-reverse engineering clause looks pretty much like another.

I spent around a year (while at the Consumer Project on Technology) sifting through EULAs and contract related law, such as UCITA. Occaisionally, I would find an odd clause that appeared particularly draconian. I archived a few of those here.

The EULA clauses I found most fascinating were the ones that: 1. purported to limit benchmarks/criticism of a software title (McAfee), 2. Specified favorable choice of law/forum jurisdictions, 3. attempted to squelch parodies of a software publisher's title (Microsoft).

(yeah, I was the guy that submitted the previous, EULA harvesting Slashdot article). If you want any help dealing w/ EULAs, drop me a line.

Sincerely,
Vergil

While Denmark may seem a good distance away from many of us, the Hague Convention may hold all of us responsible for the silly laws one country imposes. Unfortunate indeed, because it may mean no deep-linking for us and the DMCA for the rest of you, and it seems like a rather convenient but nasty way of sidestepping the controversy surrounding each piece of legislation like this by simply allowing it to take effect without any discussion.

by the poorly written and poorly argued ZDNet response to Ralph Nader and James Love's letter of last week. Read my response to them, which I also posted on Slashback...

BBC News reports that IBM has signed a major contract to provide GNU/Linux OS computers to Germany's Interior Ministry, which oversees law enforcement ( IBM signs Linux deal with Germany ). A Microsoft spokeswoman was disconcerted by the news, nonsensically stating that, "Any policy that favours one thing over another isn't helpful." Slashdot ( Germany, IBM Sign Major Linux Deal ).

Kuro5hin has a good story on a new report from Taiwan's official news agency that the goverment is pushing a Software Libre program ( Taiwan to start national plan to push free software ). Not only will the program include software development, but also extensive training and education. Most interesting is that the "national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to freedom of information." See also, Slashdot ( Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software ).

Might Taiwan's initiative be related to a ZDNet News report on some of the difficulties Microsoft's licensing practices are creating in Taiwan ( Taiwan: MS may have violated trade laws )? This issue was discussed in depth on Kuro5hin ( Backlash against Microsoft intensifies in Taiwan; MS investigated for price gouging ).

Governments outside the U.S. are increasingly coming to the realization that it makes little sense to send their taxpayer dollars to Redmond, WA, USA as part of a "Microsoft Tax." Use of open source software not only saves the government money, but also helps to develop an indigenous IT industry.

Will the U.S. government realize the benefits of openness as well? Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology hopes so. He and Ralph Nader have sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget encouraging the consideration of various policies that, through software procurement, will address quesions of Microsoft's monopoly as well as other issues ( Procurement policy and competition and security in software markets ). While the letter doesn't specifically recommend the adoption of open source software, it clearly a major aspect to consider.

Below are some of the practices Nader and Love want OMB to examine:

• OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture" makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers, and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave.
• OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software.
• OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vender of PC client software, and have the size of the cap depend upon Microsoft's willingness to open up its interface information, or port its MS Office products to additional platforms.
• OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software.

Ralph Nader said "The federal government spends billions of dollars on software purchases from one company that is continually raising prices, making its products incompatible with previous versions in order to force upgrades, deliberately creating interoperability problems with would-be competitors, and is well known for engaging in many other anticompetitive practices. Would a business that was spending this much money be such a passive consumer? "

James Love said "The US Government could easily solve all of its concerns over the Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct by being a smarter consumer. Taxpayers are spending millions to restrain Microsoft's monopoly, and billions to support the Microsoft monopoly. There needs to be a more coherent strategy."

Copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Minor typographical corrections made.

BBC News reports that IBM has signed a major contract to provide GNU/Linux OS computers to Germany's Interior Ministry, which oversees law enforcement ( IBM signs Linux deal with Germany ). A Microsoft spokeswoman was disconcerted by the news, nonsensically stating that, "Any policy that favours one thing over another isn't helpful." Slashdot ( Germany, IBM Sign Major Linux Deal ).

Kuro5hin has a good story on a new report from Taiwan's official news agency that the goverment is pushing a Software Libre program ( Taiwan to start national plan to push free software ). Not only will the program include software development, but also extensive training and education. Most interesting is that the "national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to freedom of information." See also, Slashdot ( Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software ).

Might Taiwan's initiative be related to a ZDNet News report on some of the difficulties Microsoft's licensing practices are creating in Taiwan ( Taiwan: MS may have violated trade laws )? This issue was discussed in depth on Kuro5hin ( Backlash against Microsoft intensifies in Taiwan; MS investigated for price gouging ).

Governments outside the U.S. are increasingly coming to the realization that it makes little sense to send their taxpayer dollars to Redmond, WA, USA as part of a "Microsoft Tax." Use of open source software not only saves the government money, but also helps to develop an indigenous IT industry.

Will the U.S. government realize the benefits of openness as well? Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology hopes so. He and Ralph Nader have sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget encouraging the consideration of various policies that, through software procurement, will address quesions of Microsoft's monopoly as well as other issues ( Procurement policy and competition and security in software markets ). While the letter doesn't specifically recommend the adoption of open source software, it clearly a major aspect to consider.

Below are some of the practices Nader and Love want OMB to examine:

• OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture" makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers, and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave.
• OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software.
• OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vender of PC client software, and have the size of the cap depend upon Microsoft's willingness to open up its interface information, or port its MS Office products to additional platforms.
• OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software.

Ralph Nader said "The federal government spends billions of dollars on software purchases from one company that is continually raising prices, making its products incompatible with previous versions in order to force upgrades, deliberately creating interoperability problems with would-be competitors, and is well known for engaging in many other anticompetitive practices. Would a business that was spending this much money be such a passive consumer? "

James Love said "The US Government could easily solve all of its concerns over the Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct by being a smarter consumer. Taxpayers are spending millions to restrain Microsoft's monopoly, and billions to support the Microsoft monopoly. There needs to be a more coherent strategy."

Copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Minor typographical corrections made.

BBC News reports that IBM has signed a major contract to provide GNU/Linux OS computers to Germany's Interior Ministry, which oversees law enforcement ( IBM signs Linux deal with Germany ). A Microsoft spokeswoman was disconcerted by the news, nonsensically stating that, "Any policy that favours one thing over another isn't helpful." Slashdot ( Germany, IBM Sign Major Linux Deal ).

Kuro5hin has a good story on a new report from Taiwan's official news agency that the goverment is pushing a Software Libre program ( Taiwan to start national plan to push free software ). Not only will the program include software development, but also extensive training and education. Most interesting is that the "national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to freedom of information." See also, Slashdot ( Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software ).

Might Taiwan's initiative be related to a ZDNet News report on some of the difficulties Microsoft's licensing practices are creating in Taiwan ( Taiwan: MS may have violated trade laws )? This issue was discussed in depth on Kuro5hin ( Backlash against Microsoft intensifies in Taiwan; MS investigated for price gouging ).

Governments outside the U.S. are increasingly coming to the realization that it makes little sense to send their taxpayer dollars to Redmond, WA, USA as part of a "Microsoft Tax." Use of open source software not only saves the government money, but also helps to develop an indigenous IT industry.

Will the U.S. government realize the benefits of openness as well? Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology hopes so. He and Ralph Nader have sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget encouraging the consideration of various policies that, through software procurement, will address quesions of Microsoft's monopoly as well as other issues ( Procurement policy and competition and security in software markets ). While the letter doesn't specifically recommend the adoption of open source software, it clearly a major aspect to consider.

Below are some of the practices Nader and Love want OMB to examine:

• OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture" makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers, and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave.
• OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software.
• OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vender of PC client software, and have the size of the cap depend upon Microsoft's willingness to open up its interface information, or port its MS Office products to additional platforms.
• OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software.

Ralph Nader said "The federal government spends billions of dollars on software purchases from one company that is continually raising prices, making its products incompatible with previous versions in order to force upgrades, deliberately creating interoperability problems with would-be competitors, and is well known for engaging in many other anticompetitive practices. Would a business that was spending this much money be such a passive consumer? "

James Love said "The US Government could easily solve all of its concerns over the Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct by being a smarter consumer. Taxpayers are spending millions to restrain Microsoft's monopoly, and billions to support the Microsoft monopoly. There needs to be a more coherent strategy."

Copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Minor typographical corrections made.

I was pretty surprised that Carl Kaplan did not mention the fact that 60 countries are negotiating a treaty that may set international jurisdiction rules for libel and defamation cases. The NYT continues to ignore this treaty, and here the omission is really pretty stark.

http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.ht m

True. Nader & Love's Tunney Act letter was well-written too. I appreciate both the Villanueva letter and the Nader/Love letter in different ways. It is one more reason I would feel compelled to vote for Ralph Nader if he runs again.

If you're so desperate to throw a vote to some foreign guy based on only one of his stances, you might want to look up politicians who have similar agendas at home, like Ralph Nader. He has been keeping up with the issue.

Microsoft's enormous cash reserves may constitute an illegal tax shelter. See here and here for more details.

• Microsoft doesn't PAY dividends.

> I wonder if U.S. businesses would enjoy being
> constrained to French, Chinese or Uzbekistani
> commercial law if a resident there buys their
> product

See This page which explains the negotiation of the Hague convention on jurisdiction and foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters.

I wonder if U.S. citizens would enjoy being constrained to French, Chinese or Uzbekistani civil law if a U.S. business takes a dislike to them.

Now start writing to politicians. :-((

You shouldn't dump too much on patent owners who aren't fully utilizing their patents -- most small inventors (whether they patent their invention or not) see large corporations swoop in and seize their work before they could possibily have capitalized on it. If they're lucky, they have a patent and a good understanding of patent law, and can thus make something off of the corporation in question. Usually not, though.

You probably don't want to strengthen patents any more than they already are, because we're already seeing all kinds of problems with software patents being used to lock open source solutions out of various areas. Many industries also have the problem that start-ups are impossible because the established players already own the necessary patents, and have no interest in licensing them to a new competitor.

Personally, I suspect that the answer is probably a compulsory license regime for patents. In this case, a sensible solution might be to set default payments which are somewhat high, but that scale with number of units sold and price charged. Thus, large corporations still have an incentive to negotiate with patent holders for lower license fees, but start-ups needn't pay anything until they start shipping units, and would be free to use the patents at that rate whether or not their competitors want to let them into the market. Finally, free software would be protected, since in this scheme the developers would be implicitly accepting the default terms, which wouldn't require payment for copies not being charged for (but RH et al would have to fork out for distros that they sell).

Unsurprisingly, a number of powerful lobbies have ensured that this cannot happen without major changes to our IP system; for one thing, it would require breaking the WIPO treaty, which the megacorps paid really good money for.

This was linked to in a story a while back. I'm pulling from it for my letter.

Nader

[Life expectancy] has increased from 42 to 49 in sub Saharan Africa

What planet do you live on? Life expectancy is falling like a stone in sub-Saharan Africa. A half century of progress has been erased by HIV/AIDS.

• Life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa is currently pegged around 47 years, down from 59 years--reached in the early 90's.
• The average Zimbabwean can now expect to live 39 years, down from 65 prior to the AIDS epidemic
• Life expectancy in some African countries is dropping to "Medieval" levels.
• The dramatic bottom of the list for years of healthy life for babies born in 1999: Sierra Leona, 25.9; Niger, 29.1; Malawi, 29.4; Zambia, 30.3; Botswana, 32.3; Uganda, 32.7; Rwanda, 32.8; Zimbabwe, 32.9; Mali, 33.1; and Ethiopia, 33.5

No other century in history was as good for the human race as the 20th, despite the efforts of Hitler (6 million Jews), Stalin (20 million Ukrainians and rural Russians) and Mao (30 million)

Please don't forget to include the 28 million currently sentenced to die by the WTO.

While capitalism may not be a sinking ship, it is failing to guard its own future. Capitalism is good at sharing its diseases with the poor nations, and not very good at sharing the cure. By aggressively defending intellectual property rights, capitalism is a snake swallowing its own tail.

A darned good idea (imho) would be to force Microsoft to publish their APIs, and restrict them from anti-competitive practices. IBM was doing this 20 years ago in the mainframe world and the European Union slapped them down hard for it.

It's mentioned in this article on gnu.org, but one of the links to the settlement details (the most important part) is broken, the new location for ibm1984ec.html is here.

hmm, strange that there are 50 comments already and noone has mentioned the Godfrey vs Demon case from a year or two back...

random link here

[for those who missed it, he sued Demon for not blocking a message about him on a Usenet newsgroup.....]

Microsoft and the current DOJ lawyers started with the economy card. Sue Microsoft, see the economy tumble. Next we had a judge whose orders were to settle this, out of court. Why? It appears she has a lack of both Anti-trust and technology experience.

Then in a secret meeting between Microsoft's attorney (a former Reagan appointee) and the lead attorney for the DOJ (a current appointee), a deal less restrictive than accepted prior to the trail was accepted without the state's knowledge.

This is an op-ed piece supplied for the consumption of U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. As we start to enter the 60-day review period, this will give Microsoft more leverage to indicate they do have competition and the deal is fair. Of course, the exclusions put into the deal also ensure Open source will not be considered a legitimate third party to receive any advance notice or right to information.

In addition, they can force those who do have 'the right" to sign non-disclosures, under the guise of ensuring security, and sue anyone attempting to provide access to open source. Then they begin legal action against anyone who uses the information to enhance open source.

While it may make us "feel good" to know we are considered a threat, we are not. A threat is something you do not have a solution for. They have a solution and it is about to become a legal document by which they can exclude all open source from access.

Consider how far we could push Linux, BSD, etc... into an environment where merely communicating with the existing NT network would be considered illegal. A simple API change we cannot mimic or duplicate and they can tie it up in court for years. The mere specter of such possibility will keep us out of many shops.

Now is the time to re-read Ralph Nader's letter and create your own. Keep it specific to the agreement, factual and polite. This will become a legal document, not an editorial or slashdot forum. Revise, reread, and revise some more. When the 60-day period begins, print it off, and mail it. Start working on it now to be ready when the time comes.

Note to editors: can we put up a forum where people can post their letters for comment?

...Please consider these and other criticisms of the settlement proposal, and avoid if possible yet another weak ending to a Microsoft antitrust case. Better to send this unchastened monopoly juggernaut a sterner message.

http://www.cptech.org/at/ms/rnjl2kollarkotellynov5 01.html

The essential goals of the WIPO and the WTO's TRIPS agreement have essentially the same goals: to standardize Intellectual Property Law across national borders. James Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology, has Pharm-policy mailing list readers a link to this joint press release of the WTO and the WIPO. This press release describes a new joint initiative regarding cooperation between these two corporation-friendly organizations. The initiative calls for a new push to help developing countries establish more monopolistic intellectual property infrastructures. Dr. Kamil Idris, Director General of the WIPO, states in the press release that intellectual property was a tool for technological advancement, economic growth and wealth creation for all nations, especially for least-developed countries. Does this joint initiative really take into account the economic needs of the people in less developed countries? Or does it simply add to the wealth of companies that monopolize information? What about economically comprimised people living in well-developed countries?

Read the essay entitled The WTO and the WIPO Combine Forces to Privatize the World .

This is old news for these two companies...

They have been sueing and counter-sueing for quite a while, i.e.:

Macromedia filed a countersuit against Adobe in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware that alleged the invalidity of Adobe's '528 patent, and claimed that several of Adobe's software products infringed upon Macromedia patents.

Macromedia's countersuit alleged that Adobe infringed three Macromedia patents:

5,467,443: "System and method for automatically generating derived graphic elements"

5,151,998: "Sound editing system using control line for altering specified characteristic of adjacent segment of the stored waveform"

5,204,969: "Sound editing system using visually displayed control line for altering specified characteristic of adjacent segment of stored waveform"

And so on...

Some good info:

www.cptech.com has some good info and links on the two sueing and counter-sueing.

macweek.com seems to indicate the the whole thing is over the fact that 'that Adobe Premiere violates two patents related to visual display and editing of soundforms. Macromedia also contended that Adobe's patents in the case are invalid and thus unenforceable.'

This seems to be a defense patent battle, in that both sides are trying to invalidate the other sides patents...

A few more links...

www.creativemac.com says 'Macromedia Fires Back at Adobe'

And an editorial by WebDeveloper.com... and I quote:

Adobe and Macromedia have been fighting for Web designers' patronage for years. Now that battle will be entering the court system, as Adobe accuses its rival of patent infringement.

Ultimately, I would say this a standard battle of patents. Such things have taken place many a time, this time it just happens to involve software patents, and thus happens upon the radar of geeks and slashdot...

It is wonderfully ironic that someone who is head of the CPT and should be strongly opposed to microsoft for both business and philosophical reasons sites those same reasons for using microsoft products. If people like Jaime Love cannot be convinced of a choice other than microsoft, then there is little hope of the general public doing so.

Excellent suggestion. For reference, until very very recently, IBM had similar rules enacted against it for system 390 related products and annoucements. If it weren't for those consent decree's, we would all still be using 3270 terminals connected to mainframes to do our computing. Without antitrust against IBM, there would not have even BEEN a PC industry or Microsoft. Who knows what the opportunity cost of NOT punishing Microsoft is doing to our economy now.

Unfortunately, if the Hague Conference gets its way, laws passed in the US (and conversely, laws passed in other signatories to the proposed treaty (read the Western World, much of Asia, including Japan, China)) will be enforceable in all nations signing up to the treaty. Ie. if I do something in the UK that contravenes a US law, (but no law in the UK), I will face extradition to the USA for prosecution and consequent fines and/or imprisonment.

See Hague Conference on Private International Law for details.

Please at least try the links in the article. 2 clicks got me this. It's everything on their stance of the issue.

I commend your work and am impressed by your educational background. After reviewing your background and understanding successful lobbyists generally have experience as legislators or as staff to powerful legislators with the establishment of important relationships, however, I am concerned you may not be an effective lobbyist. Do you find the absence of experience as a legislator or working as a senior aide for a powerful legislator (which such experiences create relationships with elected officials) a detriment to your ability to effectively lobby for these important issues?

If your refering to the government of Brazil deciding to break a patent and domestically produce the drug nelfinavir for AIDS treatment, then your statement is unfair.

The health ministry in Brazil is spending 28% of it's budget on nelfinavir alone. Their not manufacturing the drug domestically because they just didn't feel like paying for it. They did it because too many people are dying and they can't afford to pay the high cost just so Roche can make a profit (remember also that research for this drug was partially funded by the US government). It's not like they're breaking the patent on over-the-counter cough syrup.

Whether what they did was right or wrong is a different discussion. But to allude that copyright infringement will be next is unfair.

As for my opinion on the article, I don't think there should be laws forcing the use of "software libre". There is no freedom when force is used.

So you can e.g. be arrested by the Dutch police for critisizing the Taliban online because that is a crime in Afghanistan.

This is exactly the kind of legal situation that makes the Hague Convention on Foreign Judgements so scary, as it would extend this to the 50 some member countries. This is why the Consumer Project on Technology and RMS are working to oppose the convention.

Can these parents afford to pay the fair market price for this corn? If not then they will never see a single grain of it beyond free samples, and the world will go on as usual. Or they could get sued like South Africa's government did.

The problem with the ideal of solving world problems through genetic engineering is that research is done by corporations that, like Microsoft, can only operate towards one goal: making money. Preventing child blindness and saving lives DON'T MATTER. They do to the individual people comprising this corporation, but the corporate structure of fiscal responsability to shareholders makes it illegal and irresponsable for the management to give anything away out of charity or humanitarian desires.

Now, I'm a happy consumer of several IBM products. I'm not seeking to question the validity of the Big Blue intellectual property vault, nor am I doubting IBM's ability to develop innovative products.

I've looked at several of your corporation's software patents. In my humble, uneducated opinion, patents such as these (and others) owned by IBM might conceivably either be enforced against, or hinder (just by their existence, prima facie validity and the implied, interpreted threat of an infringement suit)the work of a free-software developer.

We've heard what Bruce Perens has to say about software patents. I'd like to ask you just how far is IBM willing to go in embracing Linux and/or the free-software movement? Specifically, is IBM willing to take a hard look at its patent practices, and potentially committ to sharing its intellectual property with free software developers?

Sincerely,
Vergil

Vergil Bushnell

What You Should Know:

2. So long as these jurisdiction rules are followed, every country agrees to enforce nearly all of the member country judgments and injunctive orders, subject only to a narrow exception for judgments that are "manifestly incompatible with public policy," or to specific treaty exceptions, such as the one for certain antitrust claims.

Okay...So I would say that most of the "narrow laws of china or morroco" would be "manifestly incompatible with public policy"... Problem Solved! With this in there I don't see what the big deal is.

A .sucks TLD was proposed to ICANN (listed here in ICANN's list of proposed TLDs in October 2000), with the stipulation that the owner of domain.sucks could not be associated with the product/company/etc. domain. I'm assuming this was rejected by ICANN, since it's not on their list of new TLDs.

Article 29(f) excludes 'recognition or enforcement [that] would be manifestly incompatible with the public policy of the State addressed.'

Such "public policy" would clearly include First Amendment rights in the USA, as explained in this set of answers from the cousel to the US negotiators to questions from James Love.

Similarly, UK judges would be /very/ unlikely to enforce US imposed damages for business-method patents.

While there are some major issues for the negotiators to iron out (see eg this week's Economist article, no longer free online; and James Love's What You Should Know guide), the whole process should still lead to something consumers can welcome -- as reflected in the opening paragraphs of this resolution from a conference of EU and US consumer groups.

I'm very picky about what I petition, so....

Being European with a serious interest in Hague not being implemented in its proposed form (I run a controversial English website out of Denmark, which would be sued in no time under US law), I went to noepatents to read more about the European effort against the Hague treaty.

I read their brief note on the treaty, and was quickly lead to their petition linked right next to the Hague description. I wanted to sign it, but the petition does not mention Hague by name and in fact, it's not against Hague directly! It's about epatents.... which I find quite misleading. If it's really the case that my signature will not be used in the case against the Hague treaty, then can someone maybe tell me where I can petition against it?

Or am I missing the point?

Potential terminology mixups are cleared up here (emphasis mine):
"The treaty is called the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, and is being negotiated under the little known Hague Conference on Private International Law."

-Kraft

Protests are fine and all, but more often than not, heads get hot and trouble breaks out. The news covers this trouble with stories not about people standing up for freedom getting smacked down by the man, but rather stories about trouble-makers making life difficult for honest working people and disturbing the public peace.

Now, I would say a good chunk of the American "Joe Sixpack" population gets their news specifically from these outlets and that is how they are "educated" about the current events of the world.

So, here is my modest proposal. Write to your local new outlets (especially to the individual reporters if you can) and point them to a source of information on this proposed treaty. Point them to RMS's commentary on it. Point them to some of the more insightful comments here on Slashdot as well as round the net. Explain to them politely your concern over this, and especially over how scandalous it seems, because the news outlets love a scandal.

Find people like-minded people and get them to do the same. Make enough of this sort of noise, and someone will notice.

You never know. Some up-and-coming journalist trying to make a name for himself might just make a front page story about how outrageous this situation is. And THAT is how you will reach and educate the minds of "Joe Sixpack". And when all of the "Joe Sixpack"s of the US make a noise about it, perhaps then the US government "officials" who are probably planning on trying for re-election will actually listen to the wishes of the people over the rich corporations.

Education is the key, and it seems to me that the system to spread the word is there. Why don't we try to use it?

Just my humble opinion. :)

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

IPIX has been involved in several tangled intellectual-property disputes. In '97, IPIX went after the Live Picture Corporation for patent infringement, and eventually secured an out-of-court settlement resulting in Live Picture's agreement to stop using fisheye lenses.

IPIX was also the defendant in a March 2000 patent infringement suit involving alleged willful infringement of U.S. patent 5,903,782 concerning "spherical visual technology".

If anyone is interested, I threw up a page a while back that contains more information about IPIX-related intellectual property disputes.

Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

What I don't understand is how they want to force their patents in Europe

Check out the "Hague Convention". This is stuff to be afraid of. Signing countries will enforce foreign judgements!
http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html