Re: [Patents] US patent reform strategy inaugurated by myths & lies

[Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>]

another excerpt:

> Because many American inventors also seek patent protection in other
> countries, these international pendency tribulations directly injure
> the ability of American inventors to get prompt overseas protection
> for their intellectual property. Fully 50 percent of all
> U.S. exports depend upon intellectual property protection.


a useful reminder for those who do not believe that patentability is
actually being pushed by the USA for their own benefit, not caring
whether it is globally good or not.

  Same as their policies on land-mines, international penal courts, or
global warming problems, to give just a few examples.
    In a nutshell "Fuck the world".

Bernard


On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 04:57:09PM +0200, PILCH Hartmut wrote:
> At
> 
>   A MESSAGE FROM THE UNDER SECRETARY AND DIRECTOR
>   http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/strat2001/21sp_covermemo.htm
> 
> commissioner Rogan says:
> 
> <<
> 
> When the Founding Fathers created our new Republic, they carefully
> drafted our Constitution to be limited in scope and Federal
> authority. As they painstakingly crafted the institutions of our new
> government - institutions such as the presidency, the Congress, and
> the judicial system - the Founders also saw fit to include a clause
> anticipating the establishment of a patent system and the protection
> of intellectual property. With their attention focused on the birth
> of a new Republic, why did they feel the need to deal with what
> appears to be, at first blush, an obscure area of law?
> 
> The answer is as important to our generation as it was to theirs:
> they understood that their agrarian colony would never grow to be an
> economic and technological giant unless there was an incentive for
> inventors to create, and for other inventors to study and improve
> upon the creations. From this foresight came the American systems of
> patents, trademarks and copyright protection, which give inventors
> and authors the ability to enjoy, for a limited period of time, the
> exclusive economic benefits of their genius.
> 
> >>
> 
> He goes on to tell the story of how Thomas Jefferson, as the first patent
> office director, examined a lot of patents himself, apparently because of
> the importance which he attributed to the patent system.
> 
> Of course he does not quote what is really written in the US constitution.
> 
> The lies are quite easy to see:
> 
> - There is often enough of an incentive without patents
> - Some countries were industrialised successfully without a patent system.
>   The patent system was not all that important and often more harmful
>   than helpful.
> - Where ownership may extend is not an obscure question but quite central
>   to any constitution.  Jefferson et al opposed the patent sytem but had
>   to compromise.  What is written in the constitution reflects this
>   compromise.  Rogan has good reasons not to quote it.
> - Unlike copyrighted creations, inventions can not be "intellectual
>   property" (e.g. connected to the intellect of an individual) but
>   rather "industrial property" (privileges serving a certain industrial
>   policy)
> 
> Rogan surely knows all this.
> 
> Just another example of how unscrupulous the representatives of today's
> patent system are.
> 
> Although we can't expect any help from people like Rogan, the push for
> reform itself is a good sign.
> 
> At least at the conference in Paris the rhetoric of the people from WIPO,
> OECD, Whitehouse and FTC sounded a lot more reasonable than that of Rogan
> found here, except that the abusive extension of the word "intellectual
> property" to cover industrial property seems to have taken root
> everywhere.
> 
> -- 
> Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
> Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation             
> http://swpat.ffii.org/
> 120,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/
> 

-- 
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