Slashdot Mirror
Russia Claims IP Rights In Manufacture of AK-47
Daniel Dvorkin writes "In the latest example of over-the-top intellectual property demands, Russia wants licensing fees for the production of AK-47s. According to first deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov, the unlicensed production of Kalashnikovs (which have been around in very nearly their current form for 60 years) in ex-Soviet Bloc countries is 'intellectual piracy.' A giant but declining power starts demanding royalties on commonly used methods and materials that are widely understood, well known, and by any reasonable standard have long been in the public domain — does this sound familiar?" Wikipedia notes that the Izhevsk Machine Tool Factory in Russia obtained a patent on the manufacture of the AK-47 in 1999.
Without looking it up, name 5 other companies besides haliburton and bechtel big enough to deal with iraq in a timely fashion. You won't be able to. In the endt, those two were really the only ones big enough and with enough resources not being used to immediately start. Given that, and also given that haliburton et al. would never have started work in iraq just to be relegated to a bidding war with other companies afterwards, and while it sucks royally, they were the only ones on hand to do the job. *shrugs* Do you really think the graft would have been any different with several relatively smaller companies working there? I doubt it. At least not in the bechtel area of things.