Re: [Patents] [Fwd: jamie love: USPTO, Microsoft seek to kill WIPO meeting on open collaborative models to develop public goods (fwd)]

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> It is rather off topic, but an appendix to
> http://www.aful.org/wws/arc/patents/2003-07/msg00029.html

> Global Group's Shift On 'Open Source' Meeting Spurs Stir

It's very much on-topic.

Note that the US government is currently trying to have it both ways:

 -- At the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) they say that
    "IPR issues" may not be discussed here but only at WIPO.

 -- At WIPO they say that the relevance of the informational commons for
    the design of "IPR" may not be investigated by WIPO but must be
    dealt with by fora like WSIS.

This is clearly an extremely inconsistend, unconstructive attitude.

The US is allowing itself to be represented by forces who want to preserve
"excessive, unbalanded or poorly designed IPR systems" (J. Love in his
letter) and prevent any reform discussion "whose primary objective is to
waive or remove those protections" (US representative Boland).

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
160,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/