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US Keeps China, Puts Canada on IP Priority Watch List (reuters.com)
The Trump administration on Friday labeled 36 countries as inadequately protecting U.S. intellectual property rights, keeping China on a priority watch list and adding Canada over concerns about its border controls and pharmaceutical practices. From a report: The U.S. Trade Representative's annual report on global IP concerns is separate from the "Section 301" report on Chinese technology transfer practices that has led the world's two largest economies to threaten each other with tariffs. The so-called "Special 301 Report on Intellectual Property Rights" calls out China for its "coercive technology transfer practices" and "trade secret theft, rampant online piracy, and counterfeit manufacturing." It was the 14th straight year that China was placed on the "Priority Watch List." U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is due to travel to China next week along with other senior Trump administration officials for talks on U.S. demands for changes in Beijing's trade and intellectual property policies.
That's, OK, you're on our "assholes to try to stop doing business with" list.
So sorry we won't put our national sovereignty and our own legally enshrined rights behind those of asshole corporations -- as much as that's what they've paid your leaders to try to do.
It won't be long before the US shoots themselves in the foot and starts losing trade as other countries decide putting up with your bullshit isn't worth the effort.
But keep on trying to act like we all need you and are willing to sign terrible deals to have the privilege of trading with you.
In the case of Canada's pharmaceutical practices, they result in prices so cheap that many Americans travel to Canada to obtain drugs. This smacks of corporate cronyism steering Trump's decisions. Drain the swamp... my ass.
I'm going to assume this has something to do with generic drugs? I guess drug companies in the US are more concerned about making a buck than actually helping people. In Canada, most essential drugs have a generic or no-name equivalent which is often cheaper than the brand name drug and works just as well. I sure hope that isn't their complaint because that particular law makes drugs cheaper for the folks who need it.
Which country is letting large numbers of immigrants illegally cross the border into Quebec and Manitoba the past few years? President Trump doesn't seem to concerned about stopping that from happening. Our current government is also part of the problem.
As for the "pharmaceutical practices" I don't know about IP issues, but I know the cost of drugs here isn't nearly as ridiculous as things are becoming in the U.S. Sorry we aren't letting drug companies rip off people as badly as they do in your country, Mr. President.
Ironically enough the countries on the list don't innovate anything, they just steal other's work. Developing drugs costs money. None of the breakthoughs would exists without a profit motive.
I call bullshit - many many breakthroughs were made by scientists doing 'pure' science. We would NEVER have had, for one random example, lasers, if there had been a profit requirement behind the scientists doing the fundamental science that made it possible.
The U.S. has now been added to the list of #shithole countries.
AC comments get piped to
Not at the time they were invented, no. Lasers were originally conceived and the foundation for them laid down in the 1920s. It took until the 1980s when they were actually something you could market.
You think any company invests into something with a 60 years development period?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
We would NEVER have had, for one random example, lasers, if there had been a profit requirement
Lasers were developed at Bell Labs and Hughes Research Lab, which were both operated by for-profit companies. They funded research labs in the expectation that the R&D would be profitable.
This is yet another tale of corporate oligarchy extracting their government sponsored payola.
A pain killer that as $138 in 2013 is now $2979 (http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/15/investing/drug-prices-vimovo-horizon-painkiller/index.html )
https://www.chausa.org/publica...
This is how they (the GOP) will ultimately kill medicare.
If we ever want to bring health care costs, and being care to the masses, these companies must be broken. This is no longer about profit but gouging. The only way to get this country back is campaign finance reform.
Trump is also currently in the process of renegotiating NAFTA with Canada and is prone to slinging a little mud at his opponents during negotiations (right out of "The Art of the Deal").
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Nonsense. The "301 report" is, and always has been, crooked.
See: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2017/03/canadian-government-on-u-s-special-301-we-dont-recognize-validity-of-flawed-report/
(begin excerpt of Professor Michael Geist's excellent article)
The Canadian government stance is described thus:
[Author] recently obtained documents under the Access to Information Act that confirm the Canadian government’s rejection of the Special 301 process. Canada will not bother appearing today largely because it rejects the entire process. According to a memorandum drafted for Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly after last years’ report:
The Government of Canada does not recognize the validity of the process as the findings tend to rely predominantly on allegations from U.S. industry stakeholders rather than on objective analysis.
Media lines go even further:
Canada does not recognize the validity of the Special 301 and considers the process and the Report to be flawed. The Report fails to employ a clear methodology and the findings tend to rely on industry allegations rather than empirical evidence and objective analysis.
(end excerpt)
Oh, and while you're injecting your next insulin shot to keep from dying because of diabetes, try to remember that Frederick Banting, the medical researcher and doctor and Nobel Prize winner who figured out how to keep your obese ass alive, was CANADIAN!
ALSO note: http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/48/12/2270
"On January 23, 1923, an American patent on both insulin and Toronto’s method of making it was awarded to Banting, Collip, and Best. For $1.00 to each, the three discoverers assigned their patent rights to the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto."
Back then the researchers weren't so greedy! Mind you, Martin Shkreli wasn't born yet.
It's complicated. Copyright term in Canada is life of the author plus 50 years for written works and 50 years from first broadcast or recording for other works. If TOS was broadcast in Canada at the same time as the US, the broadcast would be in the public domain, but the scripts would not be (which would prevent anyone from using them without authorization). Gene Roddenberry didn't die until 1991, so anything written by him would be protected until 2041. That's sooner than in the USA but still 23 years away. The 50 years from broadcast rule would probably only apply to unscripted things like sports broadcasts (IANAL).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
No hyperbole, it is people crossing the border illegally. I have no problem with people legally immigrating to Canada, the neighborhood I live in is 40% immigrants. But when both US and Canadian governments allow it to happen it is an affront to the people who are legally immigrating, IMHO.
"Roughly 75 per cent of the 25,000 asylum seekers who crossed into Quebec last year did so illegally and the government is anticipating a surge in migrants arriving again this year."
https://globalnews.ca/news/415...
"Officials said Monday it is expecting about 400 people to cross the border through forests and wooded areas every day this summer — up from 250 each day last year."
https://globalnews.ca/news/414...
Stick to the Constitutional requirement, not this insane LIFETIME plus 90 years fake US version of copyright and patent that includes "business processes".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
have just come to expect Mr Trump to be what could charitably be called erratic.
I'd think that is similar to the view from the rest of the world as well.
Ironically enough the countries on the list don't innovate anything, they just steal other's work. Developing drugs costs money. None of the breakthoughs would exists without a profit motive.
Bullshit. Where do you think the U.S. gets their medical isotopes from? It happens to be Canada mostly. When NASA needed an "arm" for the Space Shuttle who do you think designed and built it? A Canadian Corporation. Know any diabetics taking insulin? Thank Canada for their being alive. How about babies eating Pablum? Invented at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. And so on and so forth. I'm sure other countries on the list have their own discoveries.
Seriously, Canada, along with the UK, are our closest allies.
In addition, neither of them deserve the treatment that Trump has given them.
I now know how an East Germany felt.
Canada has been on these U.S. lists for a LONG time. As to the treatment consider how post 9/11 Bush kept thanking the countries that helped and backed the U.S., the only time he mentioned Canada was when questioned by the press for his omission to which he responded "You don't thank family". How dysfunctional is the the Bush family? So yeah we have had this treatment by a lot more than just Trump.
It isn't even just the politicos like Bush and Trump but also can be the people as in the incident where 3 playoff games played in the U.S. had the Canadian anthem booed but when after the 3rd U.S. game in the 3rd Canadian game the Canadian fans booed back and we got the "HOW DARE YOU!" treatment from Americans for finally booing the American anthem after being provoked 3 times (and this was the final Canadian game in the series so it was the last chance). So yeah we are used to it.
I myself in my Canadian home town was harassed by a pair of Americans, when I told them off their response was "Here in the U.S.A they had the right to do whatever they wanted". They didn't even know enough to understand that Canada isn't in the U.S.A.
Answer me this. Why is it that so many Americans come to Canada to celebrate your 4th of July independence from the British Empire? I ask because not only are they really obnoxious when they do but it seems wrong to visit a foreign nation that was Loyalist to that empire when you rebelled (and took in many of your loyalists when you won) to celebrate independence from that Empire. It just seems wrong.