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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.
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
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?
The solution isn't to make it difficult to patent stupid things by making the price prohibitively high. The solution is for the patent offices to do their homework and actually review prior patents, get a clue as to what they're granting patents to, and make better attempts to verify that there isn't prior art out there already. Raising the price of the patents doesn't screw over the large companies. To them, $7,000 is a drop in the bucket. It hurts the small companies and independent inventors that don't have the money just sitting around. If the patent system were globalized and one large patent office replaced the ones for every country, and each country helped fund it, it might be possible to have a reasonable price and still be able to have the money for the office to do their homework and check up on things before granting patents.
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.
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