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Climate Change Bill Includes IP Protections
moogsynth writes "Buried in section 329 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (H.R. 2410), voted in recently, are measures to oppose any global climate change treaty that weakens the IP rights in the green tech of American companies. Peter Zura's patent blog notes that 'the vote comes in anticipation of the upcoming negotiations in December as part of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. ... Previously, there was sufficient chatter in international circles on compulsory licenses, IP seizures, and the outright abolition of patents on low-carbon technology, that Congress felt it necessary to clarify the US's IP position up front.'"
Why can't a bill about something be only about something?
"We will bone you hard but we will give you a reach-around..."
America seriously has attitude problems...
Because we would be the nation most punished by the Kyoto. Duh!
America is many things. Being sadomasicistic isn't one of them.
Life is not for the lazy.
When the rules apply equally to all countries, no problem. When China and India get a pass and the US would get economy destroying limits, well, then it's a major problem.
I have news for you - the US is a drop in the bucket compared to China and India.
Kyoto is broken.
If your actions don't negatively affect my health and well being in any significant way, you can do anything you want.
As soon as your behavior leaves your realm and affects mine, I'll try to be tolerant, but it gets bad I might need to defend myself.
Live and let live.
... a Map with all countries green except for the US.
... unless you're not color-blind, and notice the handful that are gray (indicating not only that they have not ratified it, but haven't even signed it). The U.S.A. seems to be the only country that has signed but not ratified it. I won't even go into how well most of the other "large nations" are doing at actually meeting the protocol.
In other words, thanks for the inflammatory comments, now get back under your bridge.
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The US is the single largest carbon emissions producer in the world by a decent margin. China is second and India is far away in fifth place.
On a per capita basis it's even worse as the US produces five times as much co2 as China and sixteen times as much as India.
So no, it's only a drop in the bucket if your intelligence makes our previous president look like nobel prize winner.
"Punished"? And I thought it was about "leadership" and "taking responsibility".
I'm generally against IP, but if this helps make green power technology more profitable it's really not that bad is it?
I'm generally against giving up my personal freedoms, but if getting implanted with a chip that allows me to be tracked accurately to within 3 meters will help stop the terrorists it's really not that bad, is it?
Uhm. Yeah. It is. Pork in your bill is always bad, and the IP laws are screwy enough, kthxbai.
Oh, and another thing... start substituting the word "expensive" when you read "profitable". It makes no sense to me to vote ourselves an automatic 400% increase in price for "green power" technologies, especially if we're excluding any ideas on making "green power" more affordable (read "more available") simply because they come from another country, and/or might step on copyright/patent toes in this country. (Do you really think China gives a rat's ass about violating American laws? Ask NEC about the counterfeit factories (yes, plural; 18, to be precise) they found because someone RMA'd a DVD player that NEC didn't even make. The workers thought it was a legitimate operation, they had NEC's name and logo all over the building and the uniforms, not just the products. Here, have a link.)
(Off-topic rant) My take on IP: 7 years (with a one-time extension of the same duration) was reasonable; 150 years is not. Let the mouse go already, I want my public domain works.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Yeah. I'm from Canada, and while I'm proud of my country, I wince everytime I read some halfassed newspaper editorial talking about how America has to act and ratify the Kyoto, like ever country ESPECIALLY CANADA *chest thump* has done, while ignoring that we've failed epicly. Suppose to have a 6% reduction, instead we have a 20% increase. Whoops. So now we're moving the goal posts.
Yeah, you guys have to get your act together (and we do too). But frankly, Kyoto at this point is a joke, even ignoring China and the US not signing. Shit sucks.
...as long as their big corporate donors are protected.
And then somebody will tell you the Democrats really are different than the Republicans. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
The problem is increased efficiency demands increased complexity. This complexity implies that that the cost increase of a more efficient system is actually exponential, not linear, such that, going from 10% efficient to 50% efficient is pretty cheap, but it gets way more expensive after that.
Let me save you a summer. Your model utterly fails when you apply it to integrated circuits.
No, but I can think of more than a few congressional cretins who would.
This is something that is somewhat contested still. I have read his argument/opinion and don't agree with it. I will go on to explain why later but,
The funny thing here is that congress's power to do anything because of the commerce clause was granted by the supreme court after it already ruled the programs unconstitutional. That's somewhat important because when the Rhenquist Court started showing signs of actually giving the Commerce Clause some meaning, they were actually reverting that movement away from the unconstitutional ways. Now what funny or interesting about this is that a future court could view the subversion of the constitution as a negative and reverse this previous ruling with treaties. So at best, it's possible that given the right treaty, it could be negated within a matter of time.
Of course that would depend on whether the supreme court interpreted the constitution or thought of it as a living document and decided that "freedom of speech" as you mentioned, was only reletive to what society thought at that time.
Now, here is my objections to his ruling and it happens to be most of the controversy surrounding it that others have expressed. Article VI of the constitution says "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;". (it actually says more but this is what we need to work with.
Here is says that all treaties made, and which shall be made, under the authority of the united states. Two problems with the anything goes in treaties argument. First is that both congress and the president are sworn to uphold and protect the constitution. The president is sworn with "will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." but congress has no leniency (also, congress's oath is not mentioned in the constitution.) So it would seem that either by constitution or congressional rules, that the treaty would have to be in line with the constitution in the first place or they aren't allowed to adopt it. However, when we look at the supremacy clause, it makes a distinction between treaties already made and treaties that will(shall) be made. It says made under the authority of the united states.
To me, and quite a few others, this should mean that the president nor congress have the power to only create treaties within the limits of the constitution because the participants authority is only derived from the constitution which prohibits prohibits certain actions and only allows others. To this extent, It is where I disagree with the Holmes opinion. In it, he says "The language of the Constitution as to the supremacy of treaties being general, the question before us is narrowed to an inquiry into the ground upon which the present supposed exception is placed." he then goes on to talk about the living document in how we can't rely on what the framers meant 100 years ago and need to breath our own experiences into it. I don't buy the living document idea as not only could it be used to expand the powers of congress, it could also be used to allow indefinite detention of terror suspects, warrant-less wire taps or searches, and so on. As soon as we break away from the intentions of the founders, we are more or less making crap up as we go. The constitution allows for changes and it should be the only way it can be changed (as long as the amendment is constitutional).
Anyways, a constitutional court with a strict constitutional interpretation would most likely reverse the idea of a treaty trumping the constitution.
No he's arguing that the only thing that matters is total global emissions, and that under the current Kyoto rules, any decrease in the US would be more than offset by the increases from larger outsourcing to China.
Maybe you're confused, but reducing carbon emissions isn't about being FAIR so that everyone gets to do just as much environmental damage as everyone else, it's about reducing carbon emissions.
True, but a bad start is better than not participating at all. At least it shows us (non-US) where you (US) stand. The annoying bit was that the treaty was heavily adapted that even America would join, then passed, and then mr new president decides it is not good for the industry (although Denmark has a thriving industry, thankyouverymuch). Really quite frustrating.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.