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Microsoft Pushes For Single Global Patent System

Posted by timothy on from the what-about-ecosystems dept.

Xerolooper writes "What would the world be like if everyone could enjoy the same patent system we use in the USA? From the article: 'A senior lawyer at Microsoft is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world.' They have already attracted opposition from the open-source community and the Pirate Party. According to the article, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will be meeting in Geneva on the 17th and 18th of September."

10 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. nightmares by blackraven14250 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...why does it seem like every nightmare I have relating to patents and copyrights comes true?

    1. Re:nightmares by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about we clean up the patent system inside the US before we push our system outside of the US?

      Seriously, almost everything Microsoft has ever owned or claimed to own properly belonged under COPYRIGHT law. They may hold a small handful of valid patents - like, keyboard and mouse, maybe?

      MS needs to shut up and go sit in the corner, or surrender most of their patents as an example of how things SHOULD be.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:nightmares by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about we clean up the patent system inside the US before we push our system outside of the US?

      You mean, like... abolishing the whole "intellectual property" bullshit?

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    3. Re:nightmares by pthreadunixman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your entire post rests entirely on unfalsifiable statements, conjecture and unsubstantiated claims about evidence.

    4. Re:nightmares by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Odd, I regard the grace period, and the first-to-invent system of which it is a side-effect, as some of the worst features of the US patent system. The entire point of patents is to encourage disclosure. If you have already disclosed, then society gains nothing by granting you a monopoly on your invention. This system in the USA means that your best bet is often to keep your invention secret, wait for someone else to invent it independently, and only then file the patent. You can even wait until they file the patent (see TI Vs Intel) and then produce notebooks showing that you thought of it first. If you do this in most of the world, it just invalidates their patent application. If you do it in the USA, you get the patent.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Global patent system? by MartinSchou · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about the companies give us something first - like a push for a global taxation system, so that companies cannot just set up shell offices in tax havens, or threaten to leave a country/state because some other country/state has cheaper taxes?

    But that'd be unfair of course. To the companies I mean.

    Obviously one system doesn't fit all - unless it's something that benefits the companies.

    1. Re:Global patent system? by xigxag · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And furthermore, corporations do get representation through their right to hire lobbyists and establish political action committees. Let's not kid ourselves. In any reasonable interpretation of the notion, any major corporation gets far more "representation" than the average natural person, despite being barred from voting.

      --
      There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
  3. Borg by orzetto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Bill Gates as Borg icon was never more appropriate.

    --
    Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
  4. Global laws by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I assume all the same logic applies to global labor laws, a global minimum wage and global tax rate?

  5. Ugh. by dskoll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is that if a global patent system were devised that were more sane than the US system, the US would say "screw you; we won't tolerate this violation of our sovereignty" and continue with it's own broken patent system.

    So a global patent system is guaranteed to be no better than the US system, and likely to be worse.