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Microsoft Pushes For Single Global Patent System
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."
...why does it seem like every nightmare I have relating to patents and copyrights comes true?
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.
While we're at it.
- No more than 7 years on a patent. No extensions. No exceptions.
- No patenting of algorithms
- Patents to be awarded to individuals only, not companies
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The Bill Gates as Borg icon was never more appropriate.
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If you reduce software patent terms to 5 years.
Do I get a representative vote in WIPO?
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
The world would be like hell.
I can't understand how you can live with your patent system and please don't export that shit to us other!
corporations were more sensitive to regional preferences? What if companies respected laws as reflecting regional morals rather than lobbying with all their power for whatever is best for them?
Is this because the Canadian firm (i4i) hit it big on an American company (Microsoft) with their patent trolling?
Do they think this is going to make it better? Now its going to be a MASSIVE convoluted state of patents EVERYWHERE and everyone will be stepping on someones toes. The idea of a Patent Law being forced across the ENTIRE PLANET is ridiculous.
We haven't even reached World Peace, how do you expect to enforce Patent Laws in warzones, 3rd world countries, embassies?
Not exactly the most IP-compliant country in the world, and pretty much has the USA over a barrel economically right now from the look of things.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
I assume all the same logic applies to global labor laws, a global minimum wage and global tax rate?
At least pick one that works.
The Pirate Party's opposing it? Well, then, if they're on the case, problem solved. Woohoo!
A unified patent system would actually benefit individual inventors, small businesses, and startups more than established players with deep pockets. Right now if one wants to file for patent protection in every country with a patent system worth the name it costs ~$200,000 in filing fees alone, to say nothing of attorney and translation costs. The lifetime maintenance fees of that single patent will be well into the millions. Even only filing in the 'big three' of the US, Europe, and Japan typically costs well over $100,000 in government fees and attorney fees.
For a big company like Microsoft, that's just the cost of doing business. But that $200,000 is a huge amount of money to a startup, to say nothing of an individual garage inventor. Globalization and the internet mean that an inventor can sell an invention to people all around the world for far less than it would have cost 20 or 30 years ago. Protecting that invention all around the world, however, is often prohibitively expensive for all but the most well-funded, established companies.
It's true that companies like Microsoft would also benefit from lower filing costs, but small companies and individual inventors will benefit much more. It will also mean less money wasted on lawyers, as a single attorney in a single country can handle the whole process instead of having to use attorneys all over the world. And of course it will mean less duplication of effort in government as patent offices share resources. Right now there is an enormous duplication of effort as each application in each country is met with the same prior art, which is overcome with the same arguments. This is a tremendous waste of both government and applicant resources.
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I wholeheartedly support a correctly implemented patent system in industrialized nations. Although not all inventions fall into this particular category (and we can go on and on all day about those that don't), a number of very valuable inventions require massive investments of time and money to develop and perfect. Without any assurance of the ability to recover for these investments, people would be hard-pressed to engage in them in the first place. Think, most obviously, pharmaceuticals.
A uniform patent system would require poorer countries to adhere to patent norms that would be inherently contrary to their own interests. If you have nothing to protect, and it is absolutely to your advantage to take, why should you be forced to follow along? It makes no sense to ask developing nations and others with no need for a patent system to obey the restrictions earned elsewhere. And, here's the important thing, these two completely different levels of protection can in fact peacefully co-exist. The market will correct. If a poorer country absolutely needs a particular drug developed which no other country needs, maybe then they would find use in patent or patent-like protections. Until then, it's silly to impose our will on others.
You, sir, are a five-digit slashdot user. There ARE no people sleeping with you, much less people sleeping with you who are buying licenses to use a period. (That's because I have patented the period, which I license to people for less than what you charge for "the dot". And I license it to half the population for a very small amount. If you are one of the people who hasn't paid your period license, contact me ... those cramps are the "crippleware" version you downloaded for free.)
I expect every nation that thinks it is going to host the HQ of any such organisation will be all for it. But not so much when they realise the entire patents system would be controlled by foreign nations. At an individual level, I don't give a shit what is patented in the US. Unless I do something over there, you don't have ANY claim to authority over me. But if my country has chosen to patent that specific thing then OK, I'll respect that, I use my authority as a citizen to grant them that authority over me (by that same token, I quite rightly do not have any say over what is patented in the US).
A patent is an agreement between an "inventor" (sadly, needing to use the term very loosely) and society. The inventor offers details of the invention in return to society granting the inventor specific rights for a specified period of time. Therefore it follows that the society upholding the rights be the one agreeing to it, as closely as practicable.
I see plenty arguments here that favour the inventor, but nothing to restore balance by favouring society - unless you accept "enrich public knowledge" (knowledge that they cannot do much with) or "encourage competition" (competition in submitting patents that is).
Furthermore the national system works quite well in limiting excessive scope. Presently it is only worth an inventor obtaining a patent in a country he has some intention to trade in. With a global system, he would obtain a patent whether he intends to trade there or not.
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.
How about a world king while we are at it?
Great, now you are giving them even more ideas!
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Neither patents nor copyrights nor indeed any other laws would not exist or have any weight without the military might of nations to back them up. For those of you out there who maintain the pleasant fiction of "international law" just remember that at any time a sovereign nation can always appeal to the court of last resort, or as Cicero put it: silent enim leges inter arma. International law is a useful fiction that nations maintain as long as it suits common interests. However, it has no force without the sword, and the willingness to use the sword, to back it up.
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Just another example of a huge corporate entity using their power and influence to try and do end-runs around governments, thereby subverting the will of the people in democratically elected nations.
That is much of what international trade law is designed to do: remove barriers that prevent industry from having to respect the will of the populace they are either a) exploiting via cheap labor and substandard environmental practice, or b) selling overpriced nonessential garbage made at the expense of people thousands of miles away to.
New world order, same as the old world order. Power is king, and they know what's best for you. Now shut up and be happy.
The trolls that does nothing except buy up patents for future extortion.
Make patents non-transferable, or TAX the transfer of patents, heavily. Like, at 100%, unless an exchange of patents is involved.
This would create considerable obstacle for the lawyer companies that game the system.
Plenty of posters wondered why people were cheering the i4i patent ruling over microsoft...
This is exactly why, if they get screwed enough by the current system in the us then maybe they will stop trying to push that same flawed system on other people.
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I think it is rather bigheaded of people to think that the world would automatically opt for an American model - other countries have a view on these matters too, you know. We can be very sure that China will weigh in heavily on this matter.
They seem to love them when they're talking about Linux stealing their IP.
I get the impression Ballmer loves them, but maybe others don't?
Sorry, this is flipping ridiculous.
Assuming that they are interested in patenting software or business methods, Microsoft is making the very poor assumption that the 99% of the countries in the world who don't support software or business method patents would suddenly change their minds.
There is a reason that software patents are only valid in the U.S. and Japan. Plainly, most of the rest of the world would rather not have them.
Get real Microsoft.