Re: [Patents] Re: IBM, Microsoft, BEA Snub W3C

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2003, Richard Stallman wrote:

> WIPO is pushing for policies that attack our freedom, but they are
> very general and abstract.

  It is through WIPO that the United States trade delegation (primarily,
but there are others such as the UK) is seeking to impose the DMCA
interpretation of copyright reform, and the unlimited patentability
interpretation of patent reform.  I don't see how this is abstract:  this
is pretty fundamental to our problems.

> UN support for ebXML is much more concrete--also, it is promoting a
> specific monopoly in the hands of two specific corporations, one of
> which has been convicted twice of anti-trust violation.

  *If* software patents are legitimate, then what is the problem?  We are
starting from the position questioning the legitimacy of software patents,
software monopolies and software protectionism.  We are then suggesting
that the UN support for a specific non-free/libre standard that contains
software patents is a promotion of monopolies and protection, and further
that this should be recognized as a problem.


  The member states of the United Nations are the creators of those
monopolies through domestic protectionist policies such as the excessive
expansion of software protection.  We can't really blame companies like
IBM or Microsoft that abuse these policies, nor can we blame the
non-technical public policy makers in other parts of the United Nations
for helping solidify these monopolies.

  The root of these problems lie within the trade delegates from each
country in WIPO, the trade delegates from each country in the WTO
negotiating TRIPS, and the trade delegates from each country sitting on
smaller multilateral trade agreements (FTAA, NAFTA, EPO/EU).  These trade
negotiators are easy targets for the special economic interest lobbiests
of these government created monopolies.  After the trade agreements are
negotiated the domestic policy makers then claim their hands are tied and
they must ratify these treaties -- an obvious case of the tail wagging the
dog.

> This could be a bigger scandal.

  There is a big scandal here. I don't agree that it is at the supporting
of ebXML level, but the relatively unaccountable public policy being
imposed by trade delegations on theoretically democratic countries.


  Don't get me wrong -- I'm all for Free Trade (Free as in speech and
market, not free as in free of responsibility or free handouts in the form
of corporate welfare and protectionism).  This is partly why I am so
strongly opposed to the protectionist measures being brought into trade
agreements (excessive protectionist IP policy, Investment policy) which
are far more arbitrary and harmful to Free Trade and the economy than the
tariffs that these agreements were intended to remove.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/