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.'"

Comments

I'm so sick of the American Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't a bill about something be only about something?

"We will bone you hard but we will give you a reach-around..."

Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress

[FiloEleven]

A topical anonymous first post is a rare occurrence.

The American Congress looks out for the political class (i.e. themselves) and for whoever lines their pockets. This is very hard to change.

Congress's preferred method for doing so is to attach unrelated unpopular measures to popular multi-hundred page bills. I don't believe that this clause is such a case, but it happens often enough and there are probably other unsavory tidbits hidden within this bill.

The only way Congress will stop such a practice is if we force them to. To that end, DownsizeDC has drawn up the One Subject at a Time Act. This bill would force Congress to bring every measure to a vote instead of burying them inside some behemoth legislation named "Rekindle The American Dream Act of 2009."

Public pressure works: see for example the 224 co-sponsors (over half the House) of The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, which you may not have even heard of yet. But the Campaign for Liberty organized a call-in campaign that has been running for a month, maybe a little longer. C4L has around 100,000 members, easily less than a thousandth of the population, and they've already got half the house behind their bill. The phone call is the most effective means of public pressure. OSTA will law by this time next year or sooner if you call your congressmen and get four friends to do the same.

OSTA is a bitter pill for Congress to swallow, yet you'll be hard pressed to find 10 average Americans against its principles. If just a hundredth of those who say "it sounds like a good idea" were to actually call and ask their congressmen to support it, the congressmen would have no choice.

Seriously. Call. Slashdot 'em.

Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress

[realmolo]

The problem with line-item veto, or any kind of system that tries to minimize the practice of "sneaking things into" a bill, is that the party in power (majority party) can simply choose to remove any part of the bill they don't like, or ADD whatever they want to any bill, confident that they will be able to pass it.

Basically, you have to be careful about any kind of legislative system that does to much to increase the power of the majority. The current system makes sure that EVERY bill is a compromise on multiple issues. Yeah, that means that most bills have all kinds of ridiculous things attached that we could probably live without, but it some of those attachments are GOOD, but would never manage to get passed if they weren't part of some larger bill with wide support.

Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress

[icebike]

Except that line item vetoes, as we know them, apply only to appropriations bills, allowing the executive to strike specific expenditures.

No one has proposed a line item veto allowing the editing out of specific words or phrases other than appropriations. ,

The kind of line item you imagine might allow the executive branch to change the meaning of a law which disallowed a specific act/event into one that specifically required that same act/event.

So, be careful what you wish for.

Re:America is full of itself

[malchus842]

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.

Re:America is full of itself

[znerk]

... 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.

Re:America is full of itself

[Rakishi]

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.

Re:America is full of itself

[siddesu]

"Punished"? And I thought it was about "leadership" and "taking responsibility".

Fair warning: this post will make you think.

[znerk]

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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Please read and think before you respond or moderate. Thank you.

Re:It's a token law.

[khallow]

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.

Re:America is full of itself

[MaskedSlacker]

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.