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The Story Behind Recent Patent Reform
rmstar writes "In an article titled 'The Spoilsmen: How Congress Corrupted Patent Reform,' Huffington Post reporter Zach Carter takes a look at the story behind the recent patent reform effort. It is an interesting and scary account of just how broken the legislative process is when it comes to intellectual property."
Like it stops there?
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Same old song and dance then too !!
Scary? You think that is scary? No, this is scary.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Seems to me that Congress is bought and paid for by the oligarchy, ditto every state legislature, therefore democracy doesn't work any longer.
Ditto all of our chief executives -- it isn't an accident that Obama is little different than Bush in most of his policies, actually worse in civil liberties for US citizens.
US governments at all levels no longer adhere to the US Constitution.
US governments are therefore completely illegitimate, as bad as any Middle Eastern gov controlled by an obvious strongman.
The problem is no longer left vs right. It is us ordinary citizens against the oligarchy. This is the fundamental reason for all of the laws tightening the screws on dissenters of every kind.
winners and losers alike are seeking the "sudo chown" permission through a social hack of federal regulators. These frequency and scale of these vulnerabilities have increased as the patent system has expanded in both size and complexity. Federal regulators with current sudo privileges (trusted system administrators) are divided as to which GRP to assign. Since both democrats or republicans owe their elections to many groups, the CHOWN assignment is not straightforward. As 2012 election deadline approaches, system administrators are quickly hoping to wrap up the issue. Since none of the admins understand how "sudo chown" actually works, the argument has been reframed into terms that everyone understands "job creation". Some admins are now pushing FOR "job creation", while others are AGAINST "job creation". This report follows on the heals of HR 1981, wherein some House members are "for child pornography" while others are "against". Booing is boring so here is the alternative: LABEL THE BILLS WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE.
Wow... That article has left me aghast, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.
What really surprises me is that anyone can remain loyal to either party. But I know what the mindset is for most people; "my guy might be bad, but at least he's not as bad as the other guy." So while people continue to delude themselves politicians keep screwing everyone.
By reveling in their own ignorance Americans have abrogated their responsibility to politicians, sometimes intentionally sometimes not. And when that happens the government starts making decisions for us, and inevitably they're going to do what's in their own best interests. So we get stuck with crap.
And the sad thing is that patent reform should be a no-brainer for anyone, regardless of political ideology. I mean, even a staunch believer in the free market should fully support the revocation of most patents. If a corporation can't remain competitive without the government stepping in to protect every little idea they come up with then they deserve to fail.
I can not see a moral, nor ethical, reason for honoring IP laws in the US. I've held this view for a while, but articles such as this simply reinforce the idea. Every citizen has a moral obligation to ignore laws which have been bought and paid for by corporations. Every single politician in Washington has accepted bribes and they have made sure that the Supreme Court allows them under the name "campaign contributions". The entire system is corrupt and no longer has a mandate to govern.
http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/07/minority_rules.php Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.
So all we have to do is educate 10 percent of the population and make them understand patents are bad.
It gives me hope.
"A one-size-fits all system doesn't work in the 21st Century," says Manheim, before acknowledging: "The problem with that argument is that it might violate international law."
Unfortunately, tailoring patent laws to better suit different types of technology may run afoul of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), a treaty that countries must sign in order to join the World Trade Organization. Article 27 of TRIPS reads:
"Patents shall be available and patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the place of invention, the field of technology and whether products are imported or locally produced."
Although other nations have patent standards that affect different industries in different ways -- the European Union, for instance, does not generally grant software patents -- Manheim said the TRIPS language killed efforts to separate tech and pharma standards in 2007, as members of Congress balked at inviting a WTO backlash.
Drug companies may actually have won the patent fight in 1994, when the U.S. negotiated TRIPS and insisted on the nondiscrimination language. Many of the countries then trying to gain access to the WTO did not allow drug patents, concerned about citizen access to critical medicines. The U.S. wanted to make sure that its drug companies would be able to profit in other countries.
"Amid 9 percent unemployment, Congress was bickering over two check-processing patents."
Yes. Because government regulation is just so much worse than a corporate monopoly.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Then who did you vote for last election? Did you vote independent or third party? Did you vote at all? Because it should be apparent to everyone here that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are going to help anyone but themselves and the rich.
I can say proudly that I have voted in every General Election since I've been old enough, and I've been voting against both the Dems and Reps all this time. I keep wondering just how bad Congress has to get before enough other voters wake up and join me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
"In economics, an externality (or transaction spillover) is a cost or benefit, not transmitted through prices,[1] incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit. A benefit in this case is called a positive externality or external benefit, while a cost is called a negative externality or external cost."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
"The process of enclosure has sometimes been accompanied by force, resistance, and bloodshed, and remains among the most controversial areas of agricultural and economic history in England. Marxist and neo-Marxist historians argue that rich landowners used their control of state processes to appropriate public land for their private benefit. This created a landless working class that provided the labour required in the new industries developing in the north of England. "
Anyway, AC, so that is the kind of reasons you got screwed by the system, and why you are poor when your current birthright is currently about 1/7-billionth of the Earth and ultimately the same percentage of the solar system or beyond. You have a right to part of our cultural and technical capital, but you deny that right for yourself, and for everyone else. See also, on why wealth comes from more than present-day labor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
And that is why the first part of this "Manna" story by Marshall Brain may well be your future (and for the rest of us, too):
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
The problem in the USA, which has been pursuing regressive neoliberalism for decades, is that the US Republicans are the worst sort of Socialists, who privatize profits (Enclosure) while socializing costs (Externalities). A truly socialist country would not do that. As for your suggestion of "America, love its regressive neoliberalism or leave it", well, people can't move as easily as capital encoded in internet packets -- they have family issues, language issues, cultural issues. So most people are stuck in the USA as it goes down the toilet. The USA may well take the whole world with it too, given all its stockpiled WMDs (which is another reason to stay and try to reform it, since where are you gonna hide from widespread US-originated plagues, nuclear fallout, and killer robots?). See also:
http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/
"Neoliberalism As Water Balloon"
http://vimeo.com/6803752
Meanwhile, you are just defending your own assailants because they have misled you with their self-serving "mythology of wealth":
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
That said, local subsistence is one way forward, but so is a basic income, a gift economy, and better democratic planning at all levels of our society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vK-M_e0JoY
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Because the same government that has proved itself irretrievably corrupt in dealing with Intellectual Property will never ever be corrupted by regulated telecoms and internet service providers.
Standard Oil was broken up. So was Bell and American Tobacco. Microsoft was smacked around quite a bit.
When was the last time the government ceded control of anything?
Corporate monopoly control exists as long as consumers, or the government, permit it. Governmental control is unending.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
why reform, when you can buy cheap patents from China?
I applaud your windmill tilting skills.
Alas, the oligarchy has the voting masses controlled via television lies, and by this even more than by direct corruption (poorly disguised as campaign funding) controls the elected government. And they like their tame monkeys in Washington, and will not replace them.
The system has been hijacked.
WALSTIB!
Grandfather it in like this: if you file a patent by the rules of Patent 2.0, then you can no longer sue or be sued using the Patent 1.0 system. Furthermore, you have to abandon all existing Patent 1.0 lawsuits. In exchange, any Patent 1.0 lawsuits filed against your organization are void.
How much would that level the playing field?
There is a very simple way to reduce corporation's back room influence on congress. Only allow companies to register as limited liability entity if they give up some of their personhood rights, including making campaign contributions. There, I fixed democracy for you. Go check out corporate personhood if you need more details on how twisted this has become.
Voting third party doesn't help. In my country I voted for the fourth party along with a lot of other people. Suddenly they're the second party and the first thing they did was change their platform to be much like the old party they replaced. Most of the things they removed from their platform were the reasons that I voted for them.
A couple of elections ago the provincial right wing party self-destructed. Suddenly third party did well with a bunch of unknowns getting voted in. The members of the right wing party joined the former third, now second party enmasse, changed their platform to basically the same as party that self-destructed and got rid of most of the unknowns. Next election we get a new party in power that is pretty well the same as the party they replaced.
Voting independent could work, it's just a shame the system is totally against them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I applaud your windmill tilting skills.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.- E. Debs