U.S. Gets Taste of Own Patent Medicine

cheesedog writes "A few Andean countries have turned the tables on U.S. requests for more forceful expansion of patent law, requesting broader protection for indigenous plants and tribal uses of natural medicines. At first glance this seems like a win for these countries, but it is also a major braodening of the definition of what kinds of ideas can be locked away from the public in government-granted monopolies. As Right to Create notes: 'Let us hope that those involved in these negotiations, particularly those representing us in the U.S., see this for what it is: a de facto demonstration of how ridiculous our intellectual monopoly regime has become, and how insane our demands on the rest of the world's citizens are.'"

Comments

404

[spot35]

Nice, the linked article shows a 404. Here is another article about the subject

Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

The odds of this sort of IP protection being accepted worldwide: about zero. Anyone feel like sending a royalty payment to Peru each time you eat a potato? Didn't think so.

Similarly, the odds of this causing some sort of moral crisis on the part of US and other Western governments: about zero. Like I said, let's wish for a pony while we're enjoying this rich, satisfying fantasy life.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[1001011010110101]

So, you (i.e. US) pretend to receive royalties payments and have exclusive rights on something which has been used by indigenous people by years (probably decades or even more)?
Its funny as the US pretends respect from everyone without reciprocating.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

No. Let's review what we're talking about here - basically, the idea is that countries should somehow have rights to anything and everything that's created from something that once upon a time kinda sorta originated somewhere in the vicinity of what would one day be their country - i.e., they don't want to patent the cancer cure, they want to patent the tree it comes from, and thereby claim ownership of the cancer cure too. It's great if you're the sort of country that has a lot of trees but doesn't actually do anything with them, but for those places that actually, you know, create things, there's no incentive at all to sign on to such a thing.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[1001011010110101]

So, suddenly because someone send a researcher to the rain forest, to learn how indigenous people used some plants, they suddenly have exclusives right to the product of those plants, and you pretend that even them (i.e. the people that have used the plants forever) have to pay royalties? Its kind of odd, dont you think? If anyone has any rights to the medicinal application of the plant species, is the ones that have been using them for a long time, not the US that puts them into a plastic bottle and pattents it in your country (mostly because people can patent even a Turd shape over there).

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

So, suddenly because someone send a researcher to the rain forest, to learn how indigenous people used some plants, they suddenly have exclusives right to the product of those plants, and you pretend that even them (i.e. the people that have used the plants forever) have to pay royalties?

Any actual examples of that ever happening? Bayer held a patent on aspirin when it was first created, but that did not prevent anyone who was so inclined from going out and eating the bark of the willow tree from whence it came.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[KilobyteKnight]

So, suddenly because someone send a researcher to the rain forest, to learn how indigenous people used some plants, they suddenly have exclusives right to the product of those plants

The flip side of that is the indigenous people made no effort to help anyone else with their knowledge. It took someone else a lot of effort to go find that knowledge and bring it to people who need it. They also likely did not recognise it for what it was.

Medicine is something that takes a lot of up front investment, a lot of research, and lot of testing, and a lot of time to bring to market. It's something for which patents are a good thing. If medical companies don't have the incentive of having a time limited monopoly to recoup their investments, they have much less reason to put out that money up front - and therefore there is less medicine available to everyone.

Medicine and manufacturing != software. Not all patents are bad. They are actually good when they encourage companies to invest research money on things they otherwise may not have.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[1001011010110101]

Part of what the US is trying to force in most if not all of the *FTA partners, is for them to agree to your disfunctional patent system and IP protection.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

That's not what I asked. For a while, under this very patent system you object to, Bristol-Myers held a couple of patents on Taxol, before they were eventually invalidated. But even while they were still in force, that didn't stop anyone who wanted from going out and eating the bark of the Pacific Yew, or making the leaves into tea, or whatever folk remedy you care to think of. Object if you want, but at least try to ground objections in reality.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[1001011010110101]

So, that lab has exclusive rights to the use of the product of those plants, just because it wanted to do a business, instead of the people that discovered and has been using the plant? Lets be fair, the lab didn't want to help anyone with their knowledge except themselves and their shareholders. TFA was about the other side wanting equivalent protection as the one the US requires.Basically, a tit for tat. Actually, all the US wants, as usual, is to force their interests on the rest of the world. They dont give a fuck about what the rest deserves, what's fair, or what they need.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[1001011010110101]

My objections are not about the people drinking or smoking whatever herbs they want to, that wont change. They are about stealing knowledge from other cultures/sources and pretending to discover the wheel, and pretend to have some kind of special rights to exploit it over anyone else's.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

They are about stealing knowledge from other cultures/sources and pretending to discover the wheel...

If I observe you, a native tribesman, using some herb to cure toothaches, and I then extract and patent some new painkiller from the herb, how is that "stealing" knowledge from you?

...pretend[ing] to have some kind of special rights to exploit it over anyone else's.

Ah, but don't you see? That's exactly what these countries are claiming for themselves. They're claiming that, because the potato came from Peru, Peru therefore should own a piece of everything that ever comes from the potato, because they have (or want, anyway) "some kind of special rights to exploit it over anyone else's". You've nailed the problem, but you have the wrong villain ;)

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

Lets be fair, the lab didn't want to help anyone with their knowledge except themselves and their shareholders.

Yeah, they get helped, and all the people who receive the medicine they create get helped, considering that they wouldn't have had it otherwise. Drug companies make money for themselves and their shareholders because they make things people want to buy - i.e., by helping sick people get well.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think the companies grow these plants to make the drugs or something? They artificially produce them in labs, which takes a LOT of research, money, and knowledge. So yes, they basically DID invent the damn drug, in the sense that they invented how to mass produce it. I'm so sick of people with no idea how economics and business work bad mouthing the US. Do we force our views a lot? Sure. Do other countries have unreasonable or unworkable ideas of how things should work? yes. If they wanted the drug to be produced by a government instead of a corporation, their socialist ass should have found it and started producing it first.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Otter]

Lets be fair, the lab didn't want to help anyone with their knowledge except themselves and their shareholders. TFA was about the other side wanting equivalent protection as the one the US requires.Basically, a tit for tat.

This has nothing to do with equivalent protection. Equivalent would be filing patents on traditional knowledge and trying to make money from them until they expire. There is nothing in US or any other patent law (you guys realize that other companies have patents and that most big pharmas are Europe-based, right?) that allows you to wait hundreds or thousands of years until someone else finds something useful before demanding ownership of it.

In fact, I have no problem with compensating countries for such resources. (The value of natural compounds is wildly exaggerated because 1) it's a romantic idea and 2) it's a useful carrot with which to encourage poor countries to preserve their forests. If the price gets too high, pharmas will simply ignore natural products and rely entirely on their chemists.) But this is hardly "tit for tat".

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Ironsides]

(The value of natural compounds is wildly exaggerated because 1) it's a romantic idea and 2) it's a useful carrot with which to encourage poor countries to preserve their forests. If the price gets too high, pharmas will simply ignore natural products and rely entirely on their chemists.)

Option 3) The pharmaceuticals start growing the plants on their own in other countries without paying anything to the country the plant came from.

Or are the countries trying to claim a patent on the platns/animals that came about naturally?

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[lambadomy]

I think the point is that they're both villains. Just because someone knows to chew some indigenous bark or eat a potato to cure some ill doesn't mean they should get some rights to the cures created from knowledge they already had - something tells me that knowledge is kind of old. But the issue is whether or not some company that comes in and extracts the compound and either synthesizes it or has an efficient means of extraction should be able to patent the compound itself either. And the answer is no, no one should have a patent on the compound, not peru or the company. They can have a patent on their extraction or synthesis process, assuming it is novel, but anyone who wants to come up with a different way to make this compound should be able to.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

Yeah, but you can't just send a bundle of leaves to the pharmacy and let doctors know your miracle is now available. It takes time and money to find the miracle compound - assuming it exists, and it may be that you end up wasting that time and money to find nothing - it takes time and money to synthesize it, it takes time and money to test it for safety and efficacy, it takes time and money to mass-produce it and get it into the hands of sick people. Plus, you have to cover all the time and money you spent on medicines that didn't pan out.

Now, if you can't recoup that investment because anyone can come along and make knockoffs for 10% of what you can - they don't have to bother with R&D, successful or failed, because you were thoughtful enough to do that for them - who's going to bother spending all that time and money to find new medicines? What's the point when your investment in research and development is a guaranteed loser?

Getting rid of patents on drugs is one of those things that sounds great in principle, but in practice, it means a lot less new medicine. Between research and testing and production and marketing, it's not unusual for drug companies to spend $750 million on bringing one new drug to market. Dunno about you, but I don't have that kind of money lying around, and the people who do aren't going to invest it in something if they don't think they can get it back. They'll go find someplace else to invest it, and there'll be that much less money for new medicine.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Mr. Slippery]

If I observe you, a native tribesman, using some herb to cure toothaches, and I then extract and patent some new painkiller from the herb, how is that "stealing" knowledge from you?

You contradict yourself. If I, native tribesman, am using some herb as a painkiller, and you, chemist, examine the herb and find Compound X in it, and patent it, Compound X is not a new painkiller! I, native tribesman, was using Compound X before you came along.

If you take Compound X and add a hydroxyl group and a benzene ring to create Compound Y, you may have a new painkiller, but your work is derivative of the work that my native tribesman ancestors did in finding that the herb containing Compound X was good for toothaches, and their work in selectively cultivating and breeding that herb to make it more effective. Your work is a mere improvement on the work of my native tribesman ancestors, which (AFAIK) has a very different status under patent law than if you had invented Compound Y from first principles.

They're claiming that, because the potato came from Peru, Peru therefore should own a piece of everything that ever comes from the potato

The potato-as-we-know-it didn't just "come from" Peru; developing the modern variey was the long work of generations, and anything that comes from the potato is derivative of that work.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

Option 3) The pharmaceuticals start growing the plants on their own in other countries without paying anything to the country the plant came from.

That's basically what they do now. But that doesn't allow certain parties to get a slice of the pie, which is why...

Or are the countries trying to claim a patent on the platns/animals that came about naturally?

...these countries are trying to do more or less exactly that. Basically, the assertion is that they have some sort of collective ownership rights to plants etc. that come from their regions, and any/all derivatives of those plants that are found to be useful - "useful" meaning "profitable", of course.

The other thing is that they'd like to claim that there's some sort of ownership rights inherent in the techniques employed by natives around the world, such that if you learn something useful from them and their folk remedies, you should have to pay for it. I tend to doubt that this is solely for the benefit of said tribesmen - the Peruvian government will no doubt assure everyone that any such monies are for the benefit of the natives, but my guess is that they'll still want the check made out to "Peru". Basically, people have figured out that there's at least the potential to make money off of what the natives know, and now everyone's angling to get their cut. There's no saints or angels here, as far as I can tell ;)

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Otter]

The other thing is that they'd like to claim that there's some sort of ownership rights inherent in the techniques employed by natives around the world, such that if you learn something useful from them and their folk remedies, you should have to pay for it.

My point is that these claims, which have no time limit and require no new effort on the part of the claimholder, are entirely unlike patents as they exist anywhere in the world. (They do, though, resemble how many of the anti-IP loudmouths think patents work.)

Again, I don't especially object to it. It's nowhere near as obnoxious or dangerous as voiding patents on any particularly valuable drugs "because people are more important than profits", especially because natural products aren't remotely as important as they're made out to be. But it's dishonest to present them as "Taste of Own Patent Medicine".

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

A good point. Where does it end, insofar as it's basically a zero-investment "forever" patent?

The other thing that occurs to me is that there's been so much cultural cross-pollination (literally and figuratively) throughout history, that it looks like it's damn near impossible for anyone to avoid getting tangled in it. Aside from potatoes, corn is a staple part of the Peruvian diet, both for human and livestock consumption. Uh-oh, that's trouble - corn was domesticated, as nearly as anyone can tell, in central Mexico around 5000 BC. Does Peru want to start paying Mexico for its continued use of corn and corn derivatives? Or do they figure this is a one-way street?

There have been worse proposals, no doubt, but this one is not an especially good one in any respect :)

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[general_re]

I thought I posted a reply, but the Gods of the Ether apparently swallowed it :)

Anyway, what you seem to be getting at is that everyone who's ever sold or grown a potato should be writing a check to Peru.

And if not, what's the answer? How do you reward the natives for somehow discovering that people who chew the unripe berries of the Ixtaplopchtl bush never get the sniffles, while simultaneously not creating a disincentive for someone to turn the Ixtaplopchtl berry into a useful medicine?

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Eccles]

So, that lab has exclusive rights to the use of the product of those plants

No, nothing stops the indigenous people from using the same traditional medicine they always have. The lab has rights on a product derived from that one, yes, but not from the plant itself.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[BrynM]

mostly because people can patent even a Turd shape over there

Actually, the turd would probably fall under copyright. The method for shaping said turd would be patentable though. Not that I disagree with you at all. I agree. The idea that the turd would fall under a "seperate set" of laws illustrates how convoluted the laws have become.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[ceoyoyo]

Kind of like patenting genetic sequences?

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[varith]

Allow co-patenting?

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Ironsides]

Trust me, I don't like that either.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[ceoyoyo]

If American companies can patent genes which they "discover" then why shouldn't Peru defend it's citizens rights to patent medicinal plants they discovered? They're both silly, but equally silly. If the US wants to pressure other countries into silly laws then why shouldn't the rest of the world engage in some silliness right back?

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Ironsides]

How's this (somewhat) logical reason then? Prior Art. The knowledge has existed for thousands of years. They didn't just figure out what it was for, it's been known for a long time. At least with genes, they are recently figuring out what does what.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[ceoyoyo]

But who is responsible for the prior art? The indiginous peoples, the same ones who would (supposedly) benefit from the patent. So in the case of a prior art argument, nobody should be allowed to patent these things. And the drug companies aren't patenting the process for purifying the active ingredients... they're patenting the compound -- the same one that has prior art.

If you read the article, the South Americans aren't asking for patents, just "minor protections" such as being informed that something based on their traditions is being patented, and some monetary compensation. If the drug companies want to make use of the knowledge of those indiginous peoples, then they should have to pay for it. Patents are probably not the best way, but since the US is pushing the rest of the world to accept their current you can patent anything system....

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[gnuLNX]

"And the answer is no, no one should have a patent on the compound, not peru or the company. "

Right and you think someone is just going to spend 50-100 million dollars to put out the next drug without any kind of patent protection?

Look people we all agree that software patents are bad, but patents to have a place and a purpose. The drug industry would not exist without them. It takes a lot of serious technology to discover, scale up, and bring to market a new drug. This is not something a 16 kid will be doing in his bedroom.

Besides the company will mostly likely only get a process patent and not a composition of matter patent. So in essence they do not own the chemical structure but rather a method of making the compound. This will leave the door open to others trying to find a simpler cheaper way to make the compoud.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[gnuLNX]

"Lets be fair, the lab didn't want to help anyone with their knowledge except themselves and their shareholders."

As someone who works in the Drug Industry as a computational chemist I take quite a bit of offense to your statment.
Quite a lot of us care about the patients. In fact at our last in house conference Paul Anderson (ex American Chemical Society President) gave a talk titled: Patients first Profits second. We do care. Perhaps you don't care about your job but most of us in this field do care about our jobs and the significance of what we are tyring to do.

I for one would rather take the little pill the the "EVIL" drug company produces as opposed to eating leaves. Wouldn't you? Now that we have established that lets figure out how we can do that? Oh wait we have a system called a patent system that allows just that. Investors put up the money to pay us scientists (who often times have huge debt in order to get our PhD's) so that we can figure out a way to take your leaves and make a pill so that the world benifits. But all you can see with your short short sitedness is the Evil American Empire Hell Bent on Global Dominiation trying steal the drug from the littel guy.

Christ man get at least a small grip on reality.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[1001011010110101]

Sorry if you feel insulted, but perhaps its time that you USians start to look into the mirror and ask yourself why does most of the world think that way about you. About health and the drug industry, its been shown that most of the time (if not all) the drugs companies dont care much about anything BUT profits, and that's the reason why many 3rd word countries decided to give the finger to the patents and start manufacturing their own versions of the drugs.

Re:Let's hope for a pony while we're at it...

[Grym]

Look people we all agree that software patents are bad, but patents to have a place and a purpose. The drug industry would not exist without them.

Nobody's arguing that the current drug industry relies upon patents. That's a given. But does it have to be that way? Software patents may be one of the more ridiculous implementations of Intellectual Property, but drug patents are arguably the ones that most detrimentally affect human life (Yes, people with AIDS in Africa count too.)

Right and you think someone is just going to spend 50-100 million dollars to put out the next drug without any kind of patent protection?

How many individuals do that now? None. Under the current system, we effectively use corporations to organize our funds and direct them towards drug research. Would it be so hard to set up federally-subsidized labs to do the same? What about the UN? Isn't one of their aims to improve human life? Why does every problem require a market-based solution?

Perhaps we need to rethink this unholy alliance of capitalism and pharmaceutical entirely. I'd argue that doing so would have a number of positive benefits:

• Drugs available at the mere cost it takes to manufacture them.
• Development of drugs which are not currently market-worthy. (Eg. A life saving drug for a rare disease)
• Increased patient safety. No longer would researchers be placed in the situation of returning good conclusions or losing their jobs (a la Vioxx).
• No motivation for marketing to take place for drugs. Drug effects, treatments, and results would be available without bias.

-Grym

make them stop

[BushCheney08]

U.S. Gets Taste of Own Patent Medicine

Please make the bad puns go away! They hurt...

what is this "braodening"

[DrSkwid]

what is this "braodening" of which you speak ?

Re:what is this "braodening"

[Anonymous Coward]

you are one dumb cocksucking little bitch you know that? i hope someone slits your throat

Re:what is this "braodening"

[Anonymous Coward]

i put my poo poo in ur pee pee hole - close fit budy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An idea

[alexwcovington]

Well, if you can patent genes and lifeforms... Why not just patent Gene Simmons?

and US is going to say "who cares"

[falcon5768]

Seriously, you think that the US is going to have a moral change of heart when we are the same people who for years placed our national seaboarder miles out into the atlantic and contested anyone who got inside of it while at the same time following the 3 mile rule for every other country despite protests from those companys.

The US could give two shits sadly.

Re:and US is going to say "who cares"

[BlueStrat]

"Seriously, you think that the US is going to have a moral change of heart when we are the same people who for years placed our national seaboarder miles out into the atlantic and contested anyone who got inside of it while at the same time following the 3 mile rule for every other country despite protests from those companys.

The US could give two shits sadly."

The U.S. stops and searches pretty much anyone it pleases in international waters, and not just within whatever limits it happens to set for its' own waters.

AFAIK, the only ships it hesitates to pull this on are ships of governments that have enough military/naval force to pose a realistic threat of significant reprisal, and/or significant enough economic/political might to cause the U.S. damage.

I guess that as far as freedom from U.S. boarding and search in international waters goes, you're as free as the number of carrier battle groups and submarines you can pony up when threatened makes you.

To be fair though, other countries also play the same game with the ships of countries with significantly less might than themselves.

The oceans have, to a greater or lesser extent, always been a no-mans' land where the rights a ship enjoys in open waters is directly related to how much power the country under which flag it happens to fly enjoys.

When you're on an unarmed freighter or fishing trawler and you have a destroyer demanding you heave-to for boarding and search with it's guns and missiles locked onto your vessel, international law is a moot point.

Especially if the only thing that happens if you're fired upon and sunk is a diplomatic letter of protest.

Strat

Re:and US is going to say "who cares"

[Threni]

>The US could give two shits sadly.

Could *not* give... surely?

But yeah, it's not about principles, it's about money. If the US government (and those who gain from it's policies) is making money from something, then that's fine. If not, then they want their cut. So patents will be left alone while the system "works" (makes money for them), and when it "doesn't work" (causes them to lose money, or not make as much) then it needs "fixing". The principle is the same as that applied to governments accused of human rights abuses or drug trafficing.

Re:and US is going to say "who cares"

[argStyopa]

You do know that pretty much every country does the same thing, advocating one set of limits for itself while following another for everyone else, generally resorting to narrow, sometimes hypocritical definitions, depending on their own interests?

Please look at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/field s/2070.html and let me know how many of the open, standing disputes between states have to do with maritime limits? Or maybe http://www.oceanlaw.net/netpath/page8-mb2.htm ?

Not to interrupt your little Anti-American rant, I mean, it's so trendy nowadays. Self-loathing is so satisfying, it's like moral masochism. It's like self-righteousness in a can!

Re:and US is going to say "who cares"

[lintocs]

How on earth did a reference to maritime law warrant an "insightful" mod? Particularly an incorrect reference? The 1994 Law of the Sea secures territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, not three. There is an additional cause to allow an area of influence of an additional 12 nautical miles, for law/customs/immigration enforcement.

Screw you, moderator scum!

Re:and US is going to say "who cares"

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Slashdot America bashing at its best here. And you people moderate it up as insightful. What a crock. We follow a 3 mile rule, every other nation (for the most part) applies a more distant rule, which I can't remember exactly, but think to be either 10 or 12 miles, afaik.

Re:and US is going to say "who cares"

[corbettw]

It's like self-righteousness in a can!

Aw, man, I knew I forgot something for that Thanksgiving road trip! Now what am I gonna put on the crackers?!?

They don't have the $$$ to make this stick

[max born]

I wish them the best of luck but unforntunately the purpose of the patent laws seems to be, not to promote the progress of science but to concentrate wealth. The drug companies, et el, have paid millions of dollars to congress to buy a system that keeps them in power. Sadly Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru don't have the kind of money it takes to control the situation in the long term.

indeed

[Ender Ryan]

Indeed, we are a country of hypocritical nitwits and warmongers. If you think the government is being altruistic when it sends thousands of barely-adults to far off lands to kill and die, just look at the rest of our foreign policy to see just how altruistic "we" are.

Just what the fuck do we even do to better humanity anymore? We bring absolutely nothing to the table anymore. Our largest export these days is violence and ridiculous law and trade practices. Even as an American myself, I can see that the world may be better off without us. This nation is so fucked...

Re:indeed

[BushCheney08]

see sig below. end of transmission.

Re:indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Then please help the world out and kill yourself. Here is a link that might help:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=ma nly_suicide

Re:indeed

[iggymanz]

nothing to the table? What would the middle east or China be like, where would they be, without western money? Better yet, where will the arab lands be when the world moves on to alternate energy sources. Answer: They will be primative shit holes (or more accurately. even more primative shitholes), with their minds and bodies imprisoned.. At least those in Iraq have a chance to build a better government for themselves (compared to dictatorship they had). You also seem to think that those who choose to be a soldier, a warrior, for a living should be outraged they might be asked to go and fight & risk death at a young age somewhere. Soldiers fight, kill and destroy stuff, it's in the job description and company policy handbook.

Re:indeed

[1001011010110101]

I'm sure people in Iraq is really happy that you are occupping their country, torturing their citizens, killing their civillians, using chemical weapons on their cities, detaining people in secret jails without giving them close to human treatment, etc.

Re:indeed

[Ender Ryan]

You're an ignorant piece of shit. The people of Iraq are not being given any sort of opportunity with us there. They were a prosperous country under Saddam's oppressive rule during the 80s. In fact, "we" helped fucking put him there. We weren't even concerned when he attacked his neighbors; we only stepped in when the U.N. decided not to allow it.

We fucking paid him to invade Iran. We turned a blind eye when he invaded Kuwait. Up to that time, most Iraqis had a very reasonable standard of living. Sure, there were those that were seriously oppressed. But the United fucking States didn't give a flying fuck. Then George Bush Sr. turned on _his business partner_ when the U.N. decided that Saddam shouldn't be there, and to save face, Bush went along with it.

And now, all we've done is cause further damage in Iraq. We can't get out of there without the situation descending into civil war. And as long as we stay we're complicit in the unending violence there, violence with absolutely no end in sight. Violence that we initiated.

We're the ones who created this whole situation. After all these years, we're still not helping to fix it, and instead increasing the level of violence. But I'm sure Fox News tells a different story.

Re:indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

We weren't even concerned when he attacked his neighbors; we only stepped in when the U.N. decided not to allow it.

Actually, it wasn't because of the U.N. - it was because of oil. All the U.N. can ever do is to state that military action against another country is legal under international law as a consequence of actions by said country (and possibly try to get some countries to actually do it as well). In this case the U.N. did so because Saddam invaded Kuwait and the U.S. happened to have a strategic interest in driving him out: The oil reserves in Kuwait. The invasion was the biggest political miscalculation Saddam ever made since he thought that the U.S. wouldn't care enough to do anything and at the time his army wasn't in such a bad shape that anybody else would do anything without the U.S.

Re:indeed

[iggymanz]

"turned a blind eye"? No, that's when we went to war and kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. Was this before you were born so you're hazy on the details? The civil war continued under Saddam, with him butchering and gassing his own countrymen, another piece of history maybe you were in diapers for? I'm a cocky piece of shit, but not an ignorant one.

Re:indeed

[iggymanz]

Some are, some aren't. Those whom Saddam took good care of certainly aren't happy, and those who would like the entire middle east to revert to the seventh century aren't. But this is a temporary situation, just today the government there asked for a timetable for the U.S. to leave, which is good, they want to take things into their own hands.

Re:indeed

[Ender Ryan]

You're so wrong, moron. I was alive, and I do remember the controversy. Iraq was in Kuwait for 6 months before the U.S. decided to lift a fucking finger. Up till that time, we had supplied Saddam with money, weapons, and support.

It's ignorant fuckers like you who have given our country one black eye after another. The world hates us, we produce nothing, our economy is based on fictional assets. Congratulations, we're perfectly fucked.

Re:indeed

[corbettw]

Our largest export these days is violence and ridiculous law and trade practices.

Judging by most of your comments, outrageous statements, inflammatory rhetoric, and gross obscenity are still some of our major exports.

Re:indeed

[Ender Ryan]

Oh yeah? Eat shit. This is Slashdot, not some forum for sycophantic, quasi-intellectual masturbation. K5 is a great place for that crap.

Re:indeed

[corbettw]

Oh yeah? Eat shit.

You're right, your posts do not contain outrageous statements, inflammatory rhetoric, or gross obscenity. I was mistaken.

Re:indeed

[will_die]

Get your dates right. Iraq invaded on August 2,1990. US and Kuwait forced the UN Security Council to meet and have a resolution passed demanding the withdraw of troops, this was within hours.
On August 7 the US already had moved troops to the border(far from the 6 months before lifting a finger) On the 8th we had naval battle groups in place. By October the US had over 500,000 personnel in place.

Re:indeed

[Ender Ryan]

*sigh*

My point was that I really don't care how inflammatory my statements are. If it offends you, well, tough.

But I have to disagree with you on two counts; my statements are neither outrageous nor do they contain gross obscenity. IMO, many of my statements are mildly vulgar to quite vulgar, but quite short of grossly obscene. That is, however, a matter of opinion. IMO, you're a fucking prude. And a statement cannot be outrageous if it is true, or at least a significant percentage of the population perceive it to be true. I often find a lot of people to be in agreement with me, so I find it rather ridiculous that you would claim my statements to be outrageous.

But since you are personally attacking me, instead of arguing about the topic that was at hand, I'll shoot back. I have read a bunch of your comments, and I find them to be completely devoid of, well, any substance whatsoever. You make a bunch of silly one or two line comments that add absolutely nothing new to the discussion, or you make point by point comments that completely ignore the bigger picture. And your jokes are not funny.

Ok, I admit, now I'm just trolling you.

Cheers.

It's all about health, right?

[kimvette]

Pharmaceutical companies only care about your health. Natural remedies are eeeevil and bad for you. Patented synthetic drugs made from extracts of those natural remedies are good. That which cannot be patented is bad! Don't you love the anti-herbal campaigns run by pharmaceutical companies, and now that there are medical studies which prove that at least some ages-old remedies actually work, they are now racing to patent them?

Of course, if they can succeed in patenting things such as garlic, orange juice, cranberry juice, ecchinacea, and other foods which can cure some sicknesses that patented remedies can only control the symptoms of, and if they can patent herbs like St. John's Wort, Black cohosh, etc. then you will see pharmaceutical companies singing the praises of such things like revolutionary new cures for the cold, treatment of certain depressions for which prozac etc. are overkill, and black cohosh rather than conjugated horse urine for treatment of menopausal symptoms, all without negative side effects when taken in moderate amounts. You'll see herbal remedies and certain foods rise in prices and only be legally distributed by a certified/licenses pharmacist.

Or perhaps I am just cynical. I'm sure they really do have the public good in mind, right? Right? I mean, certainly drugs which treat depression "but can cause heart failure certain individuals" or "can result in liver failure in certain individuals" and drugs which can control blood pressure "but side effects include glaucoma" is a good thing because they are patentable and real treatments of the cause of problems rather than controlling symptoms is bad for business.

I'm all for patents for protecting legitimate inventions, but companies have gone too far with patents, and with the USPTO simply rubber-stamping every application to come through the door and leaving it up to the courts to sort out the mess, who wants to do business here in the US any more?

What's up with patenting software? That is what copyright is for. You're fully protected, and you can trademark certain aspects of the look and feel of an app. Patents are not required. Besides, since the 1950s there has been plenty of prior art which should rule most software patents invalid anyhow. Heck, hypertext in its purest form has been around since analog computers, and prior to that in paper books.

What's up with patenting the human genome? They innovated NOTHING. The human genome is either the product of billions of years of pure chance and accident, or the result of a design by "GOD" and there is nothing genetics companies are designing in the process, aside from designing the process and devices to actually map and manipulate the genome. Those processes and devices are certainly patentable, but the genome ought not to be as there is billions (or thousands, let's not get into that flame war, I'm including both theories here to avoid flamefests) of years' worth of prior art demonstrating that those companies have produced zilch.

Am I veering off topic here? Not really, I'm just drawing some related (and unrelated) examples of how ridiculous the patent process has become, due in part to the employeee productivity quotas set at the USPTO, and due in part to laziness.

A few years ago it was more difficult to obtain patent protection. A friend of mine invented a product related to automobiles and the USPTO rejected it because the clerk who received the application did not believe the invention would perform as claimed (since when is that the acid test for a patent?). The USPTO demanded that he produce other designs to prove that certain other things would not peform the intended function. He did so, persisted, and nearly $30K worth of prototypes later (not a lot of money for a large corp, but for a small self-funded proprietor it's a huge chunk of change) and independent testing labs proved his claim, they finally granted the patent. The clerk was certainly on his toes, but was a little too aggressive in enforcing the patent process, beca

Re:It's all about health, right?

[mavenguy]

I don't have the background or time to express an opinion on the main question posed by this article but I do have some comments on some statements you've made:

I'm just drawing some related (and unrelated) examples of how ridiculous the patent process has become, due in part to the employeee productivity quotas set at the USPTO, and due in part to laziness.

Yep, production requirements as well as all sorts of deadlines has been a chronic problem for over the last 30 years, and management has tightened the screws even more over this period. In addition, it has been made harder to make prior art rejections due to court rulings requiring more explicit showings from the prior art references, and less ability of examiners to make reasonable inferences from those references, as was originally permitted. There may be instances of laziness, but most of the problem is management pressure for production and making dates. If you don't make the numbers you get an unsatisfactory rating and get shown the door.

A friend of mine invented a product related to automobiles and the USPTO rejected it because the clerk who received the application did not believe the invention would perform as claimed (since when is that the acid test for a patent?)

It's one of the "acid tests" for a patent, 35 USC 101, the key adjective being "useful." This is known in patent law as the "utility" requirement; the invention must actually work. This is the legal basis to reject claims for "perpetual motion" machines or "pyramid power" inventions. It's unfortunate that your friend had to go through all this expense to prove utility, but examiners are responsible to pass on this issue as part of examination. As a counter example, look at the case of the recently issued anti-gravity patent where this wasn't challenged. It would be great if this could be correctly determined each time, but it's not practical for a bureaucratic, production based system where even the limited art areas assigned to individual examiners can encompass many different actual areas in the "real world.

Now companies are patenting story plots...

Stay tuned, this one is only a published application; AFAIK it's hasn't received a first action yet.

...20-to-50-yr-old computer methodologies, and tons of other prior art which would be rejected outright by any patent clerk not only enforcing patent law and doing his job, but also possessing even the slightest amount of common sense.

Well, chalk this up in some cases of examiners not doing their jobs within the constraints of the current PTO working environment, but most of the problem, as commented above, results from the lack of time available coupled with the requirement to have the prior art explicitly discuss why they are doing things, not just show them. All the common sense arguments in the world these days will be rejected by the courts (mainly the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the de facto court making patent law given the paucity of Supreme Court decisions on these matters).

WRITE TO POLITICIANS

[olddotter]

Sadly I don't expect the US to make any useful or moral decisions. That is unless a bunch of congressmen (and women) think they will be voted out of office over the issue!

Re:WRITE TO POLITICIANS

[flyneye]

Of course,if we had stayed within our constitutional limits.
If we had only granted copyright for a short time(as it was originally intended.
But Nooooooooo.Greedy pricks like Disney and those who altered it before them have to come along with their bribes and legislators to screw up I.P. law.Now we have to listen to uneducated public school alumni and clueless foreigners whine,advise and proselytise about U.S. politics and law.
Folks,if this isn't a good reason to go Libertarian www.lp.org ,and take back our country then I don'nt know how to convince you.
Honestly,I'd love to take the world out for a coffee and discuss it,but here I am and there you are,and we with no open slots on our calendar.

And the longest winded post award goes too.....

[corellon13]

Congrats! You win. I wish I could comment on your post, but I didn't actually read it. If I want a novel, I will go to Barnes and Noble.

Gold Mine!

[corellon13]

I would love to be the country who can claim fire as its Intellectual Property! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, but it'll cost you should you use fire to light it.

Stealing knowledge?

[mi]

My objections are not about the people drinking or smoking whatever herbs they want to, that wont change. They are about stealing knowledge from other cultures/sources and pretending to discover the wheel, and pretend to have some kind of special rights to exploit it over anyone else's.

"Stealing knowledge"? How do you do that, exactly? Is that like copying a file?

In The Words of Dave Chappelle

[Deliveranc3]

"Spread YOUR cheeks!

Anti-US Propoganda?

[jgoemat]

Last year when I heard about this on NPR's "Science Friday", it was groups from the US that were leading the charge for this, not the countries' governments fighting back against oppressive american policies. I guess the media can spin any story how they like...

What the hell is an Andean Country?!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a side comment. That US people refer to themselves (and only themselves) as American (instead of united-statians or whatever) is already degrading for the rest of us. But now I'm an ANDEAN citizen! Or the US also has the patent for "America"?

The US is finally a laughing stock

[denis-The-menace]

Regardless of what comes out, this shows why the US is going down hill:
-too much greed (using patents to make $ from little or nothing)
-too little research (fewer and fewer REAL things to patent)

Now we are starting to see how patenting everything is ruining everything, even profits! (OMG! please save the $!)

Through in the ID-vs-Darwin debate and the US become it should have been since GWB got in: a laughing stock.