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.
This is interesting. Russia... demanding IP? Wow. What are they going to do if their demands are ignored? Invade?
Open source it?
They got a patent. Doesn't matter who they bribed to get it. Its the law. Pay up.
This is what we get for playing IP games and "owning" ideas.
Sounds to me like it's the company with the patent that's asking for royalties, not Russia itself.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Take a good look at the countries that commonly use AK-47s. You're not likely to find a whole of big fans of intellectual property rights there.
Izhevsk Machine Tool Factory, referred to in the summary no longer exists as such. It is now commonly referred to as Izhmash (a collaborative of multiple guv owned manufacturing sites in the region), is owned by the government, and has been granted the right to produce contracts with whoever they want without governmental approval... giving them a leg up over most competition.
For a list of AK-47 producing sites follow the link: http://www.ak-47.us/AK47_Factories.php
Regards.
From what I understand, Mikhail Kalashnikov based parts of the AK-47 design on various other weapons. The trigger group and bolt resemble those of the M1 Garand, and the pistol grip and gas assembly resemble those of the German StG44 (widely considered to be the first true assault rifle). [Source: AK47, Duncan Long, Paladin Press 1988] How much original content must a design have before it can be patentable?
During the Cold War, at least a dozen Warsaw Pact and non-aligned countries produced copies and variants of the AK47, with the Soviet Union's tacit, if not overt, blessing. Even now, new AKs are being built by blacksmiths in Pakistan and US gunsmiths (the latter do this to comply with ATF regulations that prohibit import of receivers and assembled rifles).
Now that the Cold War is over, Russia wants to get paid? I'd think that with all their oil and gas income, licensing fees would be a pittence by comparison.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I'm glad I'm not the debt collector.
Many countries make an AK-47-based assault rifle. That's because, for an assault rifle, it's important that it's reliable in the crappiest imaginable conditions, and in the hands of the laziest of the fighters.
The best AK-47 variant is produced in Finland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rk_62
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rk_62
http://www.ak-47.us/Finland.php
This weapon (RK-62) is widely considered to be the best assault rifle in general.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I get my weapons from allofrifle.com
They say it's totally legal
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Unfortunately, according to their own patent laws, they can't patent the AK-47.
"The invention shall be granted legal protection if it is novel,
possesses an inventive level and is commercially applicable."
Since it's been in production for over 50 years, it's certainly not "novel."
If they argue for patentability from the initial design, then the patent time lapsed many years ago (their protection limits max out at 20 years).
So no, it's not "the law," it's just Russia being Russia.
Murder by poison is a fine tradition in spycraft. The "prior art" rule would prevent polonium from being patented.
One of the biggest mistakes that we Westerners committed was to admit the Russians into the G-8. The original G-7 was intended to be the group of leading industrialized democracies committed to Western values.
We admitted the Russians in the hope that, although Russia was still highly non-Western (in, for example, its treatment of sexual-orientation or ethnic minorities), being lenient on Russia would encourage the Russians to modernize their society along Western lines. Well, we were wrong. Just last week, the Russian police smiled in approval as ordinary Russians violently beat up participants in a demonstration calling for rights for homosexuals. Some of the victims of the violence were European politicians who had participated into the demonstration.
The Russians make a mockery of the G-8 and its principles. This demand for licensing fees on supposed patents of a 60-year-old technology is the latest in a string of non-Western activities.
The time has come for us to end this nonsense. We should expel Russia from the G-8, restoring the orignal name of "G-7".
Ousama Bin Laden who was considered a good guy back then that was financed by the CIA
Actually, he wasn't. The US was funding a different set of Afghans versus the Soviets at the time (there were multiple groups fighting them), and bin Laden was getting his support from the Saudis and other Islamists. That's part of the reason he dislikes the US so much - we were funding his competition.
...except the CIA never really did what you dreamed they did (the Russian claim is like many - it never had any basis in reality).
Why manufacture AK-47s when they could buy them by the thousands in the open market, from Soviet factories, or from their clients around the world at pennies on the dollar?
The only people the Russians are going after right now are companies that, when they went into production of the rifle, were ORDERED to make them - not exactly a good argument for intellectual property rights, or any property rights at all.
And, as I pointed out below, any patent that might have been possible would have expired about 40 years back.
The whole "1999 Russian patent claim" thing comes from one unsourced comment in one Wikipedia article, anyway - I have to wonder about the actual truth of the claim in the first place.
From the posts here, it seems we have two schools: the people who think it's a bogus claim, and the ones who are still Really Pissed about allofMP3.com having problems.
Of course the AK-47 should be patented. It's the arguably the most recognizable weapon in the world. The technology is irrelevant: to credit the poster it is very well known now and nothing particularly ground-breaking, but we're talking about more of a 'brand' issue here. For better or for worse (and I'm thinking worse), the AK-47 is absolutely ubiquitous with almost every non-Western (from ex-USSR to Somalia to Iraq to Afghanistan) armed force. This is more of a trademark issue, and perhaps that's not quite what the OP was talking about. Just like the VW Beetle and the iPod, the AK-47 is one of the most recognizable symbols in the world.
That said, the Russians probably have about as much chance of getting royalties for the AK-47 as the Cuban government does for every Che Guevara shirt in the world. But imagine if they did... every Cuban would have a Corvette (well, as long as Fidel was happy with that, but that's another story).
--- Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit? | Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
That's a straw-man.
Russia MAY have been headed towards communism for a few years under Lenin. Never since then has it even tried to be communist. They used the rhetoric, but that's something different.
FWIW, this was probably wise of them. I may not like dictatorships, but at least they can be made to, sort of, work. I'm not convinced that communism could ever be made to work on larger than a village scale. Even then it's iffy. And I doubt that Marxism could ever work on ANY scale. Groups that I'm aware of that have seriously tried have come apart at the seams withing a year, and that's will all members at least claiming to be doctrinally committed. (Admittedly, I'm talking about a very small number when I say "that I'm aware of", and that, in and of itself, is an indication that it's rather unsuccessful.) Usually either the groups disintegrate, or they devolve into a dictatorship. I've knowledge of ONE that turned into a rather unsuccessful democracy. (I don't know whether or not they ever voted to adopt Robert's Rules of Order...but there were a fantastic number of "committee meetings".)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The AK-47 was developed under what is arguably the worst state monopoly system in history and is public domain. Specific improvements might be patented but many people paid a heavy price for it's original development and production. Ironically enough, it probably violated several western patents at the time but not even the USSR had the nerve to own ideas outside it's territory. Other nations and companies were free to make AK-47 all day long until the 1999 patent.
So yes, it was open source in a way, but real inventions should not be confused with software, business methods or grocery lists. Software patents are a bad joke and worse law.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Jews, Arabs... pick your minority to bash.
Or how about a bit of gay bashing?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I need to go out and file my patent for calculus and then maybe pi.
Later versions of the Kalashnikov design are just different calibers of the same firearm. The differences between an AK-47 and an AK-74 are much smaller than between Office 2000 and Office 2003.
(Anyway, mine's legal: I own a Saiga-12, a 12-gauge semi-auto Kalashnikov shotgun manufactured by Ishmash in Izhevsk. It's the fastest, most reliable semi-auto shotgun on God's gray Earth, for only about $400. Even in that huge caliber, it's pretty much the same gun).
Sorry, that's not proven to be correct.
Although being rather similar in design, one can not say AK-47 would be a rip-off of Sturmgewehr-44 (I suppose that's what you meant with "MP44").
Even wikipedia.de states your oppinion as merely a theory supported by some, not as a commonly accepted fact.
Shouldn't then Russia and LADA company pay for Fiat and their Copied cars? Or Willys jeep (GAZR-1?)
I'm not going to take the time to dig up links but there's a fair number of videos on YouTube of US soldiers carrying AKs when on patrol. I'm not going to speculate the reasons why.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
What a crock of shit.
a merica/contact-information-for-50-politicians-who- take-campaign-money-from-the-riaa-264638.php)
o f_the_United_States. Once the senate (and the senators who chair select commitees) have a simlar racial makeup and you will have a valid point but until then it still amounts to public relations theory.
The current western version of democracy is just public relations theory. It is about making the public think they have some say in who rules their country without actually giving them too much. The problem is that we are given such a small selection of people to choose who will rule us from (2 in the US) that it does not actualy count as a democracy according to the strict (original) definition.
The other problem is that once a particular person / party has been elected they are very hard to remove from power even if they make some very unpopular decisions. A better description of the current system in the US or UK (or Russia for that matter) would be an elected dictatorship. Some countries in Europe do slightly better by allowing proportional representation rather than "first past the post" but these still probably would not count as a democracy in the orignal sense.
One problem with current democracy is that you need huge amounts of money to get elected, this rules out most people. This may also explain why both of the frontrunner democratic candidates (Barrack and Hillary) have taken money from the RIAA even though a great deal of the american population (I have not said majority of the US population so lets not get into semantics) voted them the worst company in the US.
(The source for this is here: http://consumerist.com/consumer/worst-company-in-
Anyone who has read this far might find it interesting too look at the definition of Democracy with respect to constitutional republics as defined on the wikipedia page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Please also note that I am not trying to argue that one is superior to the other, I am just trying to suggest that democracy is often overrated when used in the modern context of the word.
I also take issue with you implying that western democracies are impartial with regard to race or sexual orientation. Until the US elect a black gay man as president or the US senate is made up of the same balance as the general population I think this is a hard case to make. Wikipedia also has a good page on this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_demographics_
In many ways the US is moving away from impartiality in politics with regard to sexual orientation as religion becomes higher on the list of criteria people consider when choosing how to cast their vote.
In my view the primary western value in recent years has been profit, and Russians have certainly embraced this with open arms. That is what the whole IP issue with regard to AK's is all about. They want money for people using what is a Russian state design (and a damn good one). The man who invented and designed the original AK was at the time of its design, a serving Russian military officer. If wanting to get money for what you or your employees invent is not a western value then where does the current US stance on copyright come from?
I dont read
> Did Bach, Bethoven, Davinci require a 100 year copyright?
No, they needed patronage. Without patronage they would not have had the money/lifestyle necessary to create great art. And because patronage is scarce, art from their period was scarce as well -- nothing like the explosion of books, music and movies of all tastes (not just highbrow) we've seen in the 20th century.
> Would Einstien have invented more if he had patented his ideas for 20 years?
No, because scientific theories cannot be patented -- in his time or ours. Also, he really didn't invent much.
> Have patent laws sped up the development of the automobile?
They have made automobiles significantly better. Amidst all the bitching about Detroit, the Japanese came in with improved factory processes (many of which they were able to patent) to make cars cheaper and more reliable. Anyone used to 50s automobiles would be astonished at the safety of a modern car-- and this is reflected in national and international automobile accident stats.
> What would the world look like if there are no open standards and no public domain?
There is a case for open standards and the public domain (btw, many open standards are based on patented technology. Example: the CD. They're just licensed on a RAND basis.) However those are not adequate cause for the destruction of all intellectual property rights.
Go somewhere random
I do not think that we should throw away all of these refinements and go back to "pure" democracy, unless we want to relive two centuries of bloody revolutions and poorly constructed political systems. (In a pure democracy, the majority could actually vote to have the minority executed en masse - and chances are from time to time they would.)
sigs are hazardous to your health
> Representative democracy often becomes just another branch of capital or religion. Direct participatory democracy is better.
Direct participatory democracy has a scaling problem, so unless you're in Switzerland, it's not very useful. I agree that representatives are also dickwads, which is why we need term limits on legislators, just like we have a 2-term limit on the President. It would also have the side effect that professionals (engineers, scientists) would be more inclined (than lawyers) to seek public office.
We could have this if people's ideas about politics and ethics weren't warped by capital and the church. What if scientists had equal access to the media and school system as religious people do? What if parents had no right to force their children to go to church? What if advertising became useless because consumers would research products based on independent reports instead of listening to the marketing propaganda? What if bosses became useless because companies would be directly managed through democratic unions. Why not vote on hiring and firing and other important workplace decisions?
> What if parents had no right to force their children to go to church?
If you're saying that the state should micro-manage how parents rear their kids, sorry, I don't agree. I'm not religious, but if anyone wants to raise their kids to be religious, so be it. It's their kids, after all -- not yours.
> What if bosses became useless because companies would be directly managed through democratic unions.
They already exist. They're called co-operatives. They have scaling issues. And yes, they have bosses. Go study organization theory to find out why. Btw, it could be argued that a public company where workers own signficant stock is a form of a democratically-owned company. I think SAS Software is an example (but I could be wrong). Again, there are scaling issues and the pesky issue of how you can equitably divide up a company.
> Why not vote on hiring and firing and other important workplace decisions?
Because that works so well on _American Idol_. The talent really floats to the top. Not.
> You're previous posts indicated that you would defend dictatorships.
I think you just saw in them what you wanted to see. My posts are on the record and I think any clear-headed individual can decide for himself or herself if I was 'defending dictatorships'. Look inside you and ask where the violence comes from.
Go somewhere random
Among adult males in Ancient Athens. The finest pure democracy ever, and it still ordered Socrates to take hemlock.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
There are quite a few complaints about the M4 and they are working on a hybrid that incorporates the AK gas system to reduce fouling. Also, the 5.56 NATO is regarded as inferior because with the shorter barrel of the M4 (14 inches vs 20 inches for the M-16) the round loses a lot of energy. They are also looking at the 6.8mm SPC cartridge to give a heavier bullet with more "stopping power". I would not be suprised to see a new service rifle come out of all this in the near future.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Firstly, the AK-47 itself is a derivative of the excellent German Sturmgewehr MP44, which came into mass production at the end of WW2. The Mp44 used the same 7.92mm calibre round as other German weapons, but with a much shorter cartridge, since it was reasoned that most small arms combat took place at ranges under 400m, and so a huge long range charge was not required. The benefits of this were many - cheaper to make, more ammo could be carried, and the sustained rate of fire could be higher due to the lower muzzle velocity.
...
So there is a strong case for prior art, with patents (?) already held by the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany.
After this point, the AK-47 used a different manufacturing technique to greatly simplify the build compared to the MP44. However, these simplified blueprints are very very closely related to the Tokarev SVT. If you have ever stripped down an SVT, and compared this to an AK, you will see they are pretty much the same construction techniques, just in a different scale.
Secondly - I dont know if anyone can remember 'The Soviet Union', but it was a communist state based on the ideals of Marxism, geographically located to the East of Europe. Its a 20th Century thing - ancient history. The 'rights' to the AK47 lie entirely with the Soviet state. NOT Russia - but the Soviet Union, which is a different animal entirely. Unless of course Mr Putin wishes to disagree
Thirdly, being a Soviet state, the 'intellectual property' produced by that state belongs to the workers, and not just the workers who form part of the collective of that state, but all the workers of the world. The AK47 was, if you like, GPL'ed to the point where all workers of the world were free (even encouraged) to make millions of copies of the people's machine gun, and use this tool to overthrow their Fascist, Capitalist, Monarchist oppressors.
So don't pay attention to the lawyers good people - if you find yourself slaving away 60+ hours a week to make other people rich whilst you can barely put food on your table - then by all means, get together with your comrades and build yourselves some AK47's. Anyone that denies you that basic right is a Capitalist oppressor and a Fascist invader of the Motherland.
The Kalashnikov design is more of a common man's weapon. State budgets can afford better weapons these days. That said, a Kalashnikov is preferred by many to remove tyrants and despots. This is a far nobler cause than eating grass and singing anti-war songs thinking the world is somehow going to be a better place because of it.
It was given the designation MP44 because Hitler didn't want the development of another combat rifle. The name was disguised with the machine pistol prefix. I didn't expound on it, but my point was that MP44 was an official name and that criticizing someone for using it is pedantic.
"The AK-47 is just a rip-off of the German MP44."
Stop the myths, please.
The STG44 was first on the field. The AK47 design was started three years before that. If you've ever had the opportunity to take them both apart (I have) you will see that they are both original designs.
Switzerland's variant on direct democracy is certainly the best contemporary example of how it could work.