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Creating A Global Patent System
prostoalex writes "May issue of MIT Technology Review discussed the implications of a globalized patent system. For small inventors, it argues, the cost of globalizing the rights for their invention are just unbearable. For example, in Europe it costs about $7,000 per country to file a patent application. As an article bonus, some people might like to take a look at the list of the largest patent holders per industry in PDF format."
With the States current attitude towards international law & agreements, I can't see any form of global patent law being created, except if the U.S. forces the rest of the world to agree with it in some economic or political way.
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No thanks!
Some countries still have a respectible Patent System in place. Why would they want to be polluted with some (many) of the ridiculous Patents granted in the USA.
Why did we divide the world into three parts? Third World countries seem to be creating big headaches for the other two.
Now, we have politically correct phrases like "Developing Countries" etc. Centuries old Third World ideas / patents are not honored by so-called Advanced Nations.
The tech world has got the greatest lopsidedness in it's structure - Third World folks sitting in the First World and taking their creamy jobs.
Knowledge is Power. If you have the Power to assert it.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
... surely you would only patent something you thought would reap you many times that amount.
And the price barrier to getting a patent (versus the plain old bureaucratic barriers) discourages companies / people from patenting silly things, where a patent would be a nuisance to the rest of society.
I can imagine the United States trying to implement a global patent office, only to be sued for infringing on someone's patent covering global access systems to public information. ...I bet it's already been issued somewhere, waiting for the day it can bite the hand that feeds it.
-Matt
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... and all, but the problem is not with the system itself, but means to enforce the rights of the patent holder.
eg. Let's say someone from Ghana created some cool gadget which has no predecessors or anything even remotely similar already available in the market. How soon would someone from the US inventing a similar gadget would know that there is already such thing patented a few days ago?
Another scenario, assuming that local authorities are given the power to enforce this global patent protection law... would they be able to do it without bias? I mean if someone could build a pet robot dog that is just as intelligent and fun as the Aibo but is priced at 50% of the original Aibo, would the local authorities feel obliged to arrest this guy for patent infringement?
And while we're at the subject of infringement, who decides whether an infringement has occured? And where will these records be stored? This might be one of the most massive database ever created (if this is feasible in the first place)!
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
Theres several categories of intellectual property.
If someone owns the rights to a song, are you allowed to:
Re-Record it
Sing it
Say the title in public
Play it in public
Parody it
?
What if someone designs a part to allow flying cars steer? We don't have flying cars yet... But when we do, should we bow down to the inventor of the steering wheel even though anyone could create one. Oh lord almighty who walks on the earth, we must bow to thee because you wrote some dumb fucking thing on a piece of paper and sent it to the patent office.
With all the confusion with current patents, and only big corporations having enough to buy expensive lawyers... Maybe a working system should be thought up before applying it to the world.
Heres how the system currently works. Thousands of little buisnesses try. 90% of them fail. 9% eek out a living. 1% hit it big. A corporation sees the guy who hits it big with a good idea, and steals it for their own.
God spoke to me
I've seldom seen any debate on Slashdot regarding the Properties of Intellect. Numerous articles, such as this one, talk about Intellectual Property though.
I think one can safely say that Intellect is EXTERNAL to the physical human body, and exists independent of it. Couple of quotes:
1. Learning is Finding Out what you Already Know - Richard Bach.
2. Education is Drawing Out - not Putting In.
3. The word 'Guru' - or teacher, past-master etc. Gu - remover, Ru - Darkness. Thus a Guru does not shed light on a topic, he merely removes the darkness surrounding it.
Enuff of the rant... to get back on topic, I'd like to think that intellect is COMMON to all humanity (indeed the Universe) and one merely tunes to it. Unlike real estate, money etc., intellect is NOT a physical commodity. Different people thinking about the SAME topic would come to the SAME conclusions.
Thus, if patents are granted to intellectual processes, they must be for a highly limited duration (say 3 years)- this alone can restrict damage done to the ENTIRE universe by corporations who hoard IP and adopt the dog-in-the-manger attitude. After this period of 3 years, the patent must fall into public domain. (Incidentally MS grants a mere 3 months for WinCE based ideas, owned by the programmers)!
Obviously, patents must also be world-wide for the same reason. Like the internet, the patent process has to be democratic, free (almost) and transparent. The stakes with IP are much much larger compared to the Internet.
Also, if patents and IP had been awarded and enforced with the same vigor as of now, say, even 10 years ago, the Desktop PC may have never happened! We need to have a Global System of Patents in place as early as possible, to foster innovation. Currently, innovation seems to be about blocking others rather than doing things better (Qualcomm-GSM, Intel-Via, MS-Sun, MS-Rest etc.).
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
The problem is real but there are severe diffulties on the road to global patents.
1. Many developing countries have no interest in commiting to such international agreements. They see the cheap labour their only weapon to get to the international market. And they cannot afford much research.
2. The consept of patent varies a lot. As a well known example many ideas patented in US could never get a patent in Europe.
3. Many countries are trying to protect their own industry and reluctant to accept unbiased treatment of foreign and own patents. That the real world situation. And I'm now talking about the "civililized"/rich countries with many international contracts.
The cost of filing in several different countries is largely irrelevent to a small inventor. The income from one country alone could often result in a significant return on investment. There are other issues though:
1. The cost of filing in one country. Most inventions are failures. $7000 just for one country is a lot of money to invest in a product that the world just isn't ready for. With careful budgetting, this could support the inventor for another few months, allowing for him to perfect his invention
2. Timeframes. 20 years is far too long. Nothing that's 20 years old could ever be considered at all modern. Most cars last about 10 years. Computers are out of date in about 3. Even industrial equipment is usually outdated much more quickly than that. If something has not returned the investment cost within 5 years, just about any organisation would consider it a failure.
3. Lack of protection for independent inventors. It's actually very likely that several people will come up with the same idea at the same time. - for example, Bell beat Edison and others to the invention of the telephone by a short time - Shouldn't others be entitled to actually finish their invention without being charged with breaching a patent that hadn't been granted when they started?
With patents being more expensive, the public (ie the people patents were meant to protect) will not be able to afford them. You also have the 'small' problem of organizing it.
Patents do help drive some technology but only when they are low cost (how much did Edison pay for his early patents?) and the patent office does check for prior art. Unless the a patent office has a better database than google, they simply can't do their job.
His lawyers advised him badly. I work as a patent attorney for a major automotive systems company and their plan is to patent only in US, UK, France, Germany and Japan.
Their competitors can knock off as many copies as they like in third world countries like Ghana, Cambodia or Belgium, but if they can't import them into the major markets then it is pointless.
Always focus your patents on the countries you will sell in, and use them to block imports from elsewhere.
Firstly IBM tops the league by miles. SCO on the other hand do not even register, which given the recent news suggests SCO are on a hiding to nothing(or just a hiding).
Secondly Ericsson tops the telco's league. Considering they seem to still be losing money faster than, well actually I can't think of anyhing that is losing money faster than Ericsson, it goes to show bucket loads of patents is not a guaruntee of success. You still have to do something sensible with them.
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
Yes, you might think that it makes sense. But when a patent is to be granted, there must be no prior art. Therefore a global patent requires a global research for prior art. Consider the current quality of patents granted, how many are bogus. Consider the cost of researching for the admissability of a patent. Now would you want to reexamine ALL patents world wide or would you prefer the status quo? Thanks, Gerard
American companies have been patenting commonly grown stuff and known medicines in poor eastern countries. If global patents were in place then lots of people will lose their right to practice something which their forefathers have done since ages.
What stops an american corporate to patent a traditional chinese or indian mixture of herbs as its own creation. Most small scale industries now dont have the idea that they are violating patent.Such stuff has happened before.
No thanks we dont want american patents to be slapped on us, unless the American patent office takes full responsibility for any bogus patents filed and gives compensation. Neem patent was defeated after Indian Govt intervention, and even after presenting the office with historical docs, it took more than a year.Examples
Texamati : A variety of rice which is same as basmati which has been grown in india since more than 300 years
Neem extracts : Historical texts have explained the usage since 2000BC
Tulsi : Patent pending, used as a releif from flu and common cold since thousands of years.
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We're not heading towards World Democracy or even World Communism, but World Feudalism. It is rapidly getting to the point that if you want to invent or create something, you will need to do so under the aegis of a large corporation. You will need the legal and financial backing of a large corporation (your feudal lord) to protect you (with their own patent portfolio) if you want to create anything-- otherwise, one of the other fedual lords will quash you, and you won't be big enough to defend yourself. In exchange, you will show fealty to your corporate feudal lord by signing over any rights to anything you create, hopefully being reasonably well paid in the process.
Most people may be relatively comfortable, or at least fed, but the individualist creator simply won't be able to exist. (And, alas, nobody will think there's anything wrong with this. Most of the world doesn't really care about freedom of thought. Once they're fed and comfortable, people seem to care care more about bread and circuses (or SUVs and HDTVs) than actual liberty.)
Yes, global intellectual property concerns are making the world safe for medieval forms of government and social organization.
-Rob
If companies can just file patents world-wide, it means that source code implementing something patented will probably become unavailable world-wide. This matters even if people don't intend to violate the patent--a lot of open source implementations of patented inventions take place in countries where the invention isn't patented, and as soon as the patent expires, those implementations are available world-wide.
As far as the "small inventor" is concerned, with few exceptions, the patent system stopped working somewhere in the 20th century anyway. Even if you manage to get a patent these days as a small inventor, chances are that whoever has more expensive lawyers and better patent bargaining chips will win, and that won't be the small inventor. All we are discussing when discussing changes to the patent system is how much we want to let ourselves get screwed.