From phm@a2e.de  Sat Jul 21 00:21:49 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 01:21:49 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Patents] Re: [FYI] British Parliament Considers Tougher Patent Infringement
 Rules
In-Reply-To: <0.700002152.1281492832-738719082-995554830@topica.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0107210051420.4415-100000@mulix.oas.a2e.de>

Ronald Riley writes:

> <http://www.yellowbrix.com/pages/patentnews/Story.nsp?story_id=222806
> 74&category=Business+and+Finance%3AIntellect.+Prop.&ID=patentnews>
>
> -------------------------------- CUT -------------------------------
>
> British Parliament Considers Tougher Patent Infringement Rules
>
> ===========================================
>
> This is great news and long overdue.
>
> If big business gets away with stealing inventor's work the damage goes far
> beyond the personal loss of that inventor.  Society tends to lose subsequent
> inventions that person would produce.

What if small business no longer gets away with "stealing" the inventing
work of big business?  What if an SME comes across one of those tens of
thousands of inventions that big business owns ?  I am afraid if we
further tolerate the existence of all those thievish SMEs society will
lose subsequent inventions that big business would produce.

> But even more importantly is that successful inventors generally start
> companies and produce jobs.  Those jobs and the tax base tend to stay
> in the inventor's community.

Why wouldn't the "successful inventor" take his patent to some cheap-labor
country and produce there?  I happen to know a "small inventor" who is
just doing that: producing watches in China and retaining control by
means of his patent.  Big business even uses this idea systematically:
some companies are even keen on becoming "fabless manufacturers",
consisting of a holding, a lot of finance and business specialists and a
lot of patents.  All the work is done in cheap-labor countries -- thanks
to patents.

> When a multinational gets away with stealing the invention the jobs
> and tax base virtually always leave the community and often even the
> inventor's country.

> Allowing such theft is very poor public policy.

By your standards, allowing my "small inventor" friend to retain control
over a process of producing watches in China is very poor public policy,
isn't it?

> Beware that multinational companies will likely start greasing
> politician's palms to stop this effort to hold them accountable for
> their disreputable conduct.

Shouldn't those small and medium companies pay "unlimited damages" in
punishment of their outrageous theft against big business, as the British
bill proposes?

I tend to agree and wish you good success in greasing politicians' hands
to achieve your goals.  That will make the patent system less popular with
most businesses (except those focussed entirely on patents, such as that
of my friend who is producing watches in China).

> By the way, Ford makes IBM look like good guys in the patent game.

Yes, down with big business!
They have deserved it.  Maybe IBM will wake up and change sides.

On the other hand, if you are successful, the patent system may incite a
great gold-digger's dream, which will make up for the lack of support by
the business community.  It seems to be that the patent movement rests on
these two pillars: big business demanding patents because of their
altrusitic concern about the small inventor and litigation companies
relying on the lobbying power of big companies in order to achieve their
aim of selling the small inventor "protection" against the Great Satan of
big business.  A fascinating nul-sum game for outsiders to watch.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	      http://swpat.ffii.org/
80000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/






