[Patents] WIPO Patent Agenda consultation

[jtobey@john-edwin-tobey.org (John Tobey)]

> > >   http://patentagenda.wipo.int/
> >
> > My comments follow.
> 
> Did you submit them to WIPO yet?

Not yet.

> > Metacomments?
> 
> I wouldn't really want WIPO to regulate that software may not be patented,
> nor of course that it must be patentable.  I think the patent system is
> inherently national, because it is tied to delicate constitutional
> questions of setting limits to freedom.  The right to readjust these
> limits any time must be left to those organisational units that have
> properly functioning constitutions, i.e. not WIPO but nation states.  All
> WIPO can do is to "harmonise" legislations in the strict sense of the
> word:  set some meta rules that allow the differences to coexist with as
> little friction as possible.  This has been done already, as far as
> possible -- and some of the results, such as TRIPS, are already painfully
> limiting the options of political sovereigns to conduct reforms of
> constitutional-level significance.  Thus it must be said that at the
> moment the best WIPO can do is to pull out of this whole matter or act
> only as a forum of discussion rather than legislation.  Which is probably
> not what they want to hear.

I will probably research my audience a little bit and review my
comment looking for any implied acceptance of a greater role for WIPO.

If people are doing something that concerns me and want my opinions, I
will try to frame them for maximum impact and clarity.  There are
always going to be people who want to build stronger international
systems, and they will sometimes succeed and sometimes not.  I assume
that the audience here generally wants such systems.  I won't pretend
to represent the interests of nation-states, least of all those whose
constitutions omit my favorite rights.  I will simply try to influence
my audience towards my way of thinking, based on what I believe my
audience already thinks and knows.

> Basically this is also said in the documents you quote:
> 
> >     http://www.eurolinux.org/news/cpat01B/
> >     http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/wipo-splt01/

Thanks for the info.

-- 
John Tobey <jtobey@john-edwin-tobey.org>