Generally speaking, patents do not cover products. Patents cover procedures, methods or specific implementations which are novel or innovative. I'm not sure I am following your train of thought here.
In the Pharmaceuticals industry product patents (i.e patents for a drug molecule and not just for the process by which the drug molecule was produced) have been around for many years in the U.S. and more recently with the TRIPS agreement in the WTO have been foisted on the rest of the world as well. I'd say it's a matter of time before other industries want to get into the act (that is if they haven't already).
All three of the countries named ARE part of the Kyoto Protocol. According to the list of countries in the Status of Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol [Available here [pdf] from the UN's Fram,ework Convention on Climate Change site, the status of these countries (as of 2nd February 2005) is as follows:
I sell things on Ebay as well (usually old games that I'm done with) - and I don't do COD. Paypal - sure. Checks and money orders, but I wait until they clear before they ship.
But there are presumably also scamsters who promise to ship after payment clears and then don't. What's the relative proportion of fraudulent sellers to fraudulent buyers ?
There's an expression in Khatmandu, just north of India, "Namaste" (someone with a clue let me know if I spelled that wrong, and perhaps expand on the meaning of that phrase and the relevance in this situation.)
"Namaste" basically means
"Hello" or "Welcome" or "Greetings". It's not just in Nepal (Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, which sits between India and China), it's a Hindi word (Hindi is extensively spoken in India, particularly in the North) and in fact there are similar sounding words with the same meaning(s) in most major Indian languages, for example "Namaskaar" or "Namskaaram".
(I'm an Indian and I speak two of the languages which have Namaste/Namaskaar, including Hindi)
Slashdot Mirror
In the Pharmaceuticals industry product patents (i.e patents for a drug molecule and not just for the process by which the drug molecule was produced) have been around for many years in the U.S. and more recently with the TRIPS agreement in the WTO have been foisted on the rest of the world as well. I'd say it's a matter of time before other industries want to get into the act (that is if they haven't already).
There's an expression in Khatmandu, just north of India, "Namaste" (someone with a clue let me know if I spelled that wrong, and perhaps expand on the meaning of that phrase and the relevance in this situation.)
"Namaste" basically means "Hello" or "Welcome" or "Greetings". It's not just in Nepal (Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, which sits between India and China), it's a Hindi word (Hindi is extensively spoken in India, particularly in the North) and in fact there are similar sounding words with the same meaning(s) in most major Indian languages, for example "Namaskaar" or "Namskaaram".
(I'm an Indian and I speak two of the languages which have Namaste/Namaskaar, including Hindi)