Re: [Patents] Indian patent practice

["Jim Bessen" <jbessen@researchoninnovation.org>]

From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/15/technology/15innovate.html

It seems US firms are using Indian engineers to write US patents. This makes
the cost of patenting less but also shows that patents provide no protection
vs. outsourcing.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Hartmut Pilch" <phm@a2e.de>
To: "Carsten Svaneborg" <zqex@mpipks-dresden.mpg.de>
Cc: "Patent forum" <patents@aful.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 7:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Patents] Indian patent practice


> > One of the argument for the directive that has been mentioned in Denmark
> > is that patent protection is necessary otherwise jobs will just move to
India.
>
> > Clearly a bogus statement, but anyways, I checked the software patent
> > status in India, and the Indian patentpractice guidelines (of 2001) are
> > available at:  http://www.patentoffice.nic.in/ipr/patent/manual.htm
>
> Very interesting, but unrelated to the bogus statement (McCarthy "low cost
> economy" recital).  According to this bogus logic, it is quite normal that
> "low cost" places like India should grant few patents whereas high cost
> places should grant many.
>
> But, evidently, jobs, even those in R&D, are not moving to where the many
> patents are.
>
> Andy Grove of Intel in his BSA presentation
>
>   Andy Grove presentation: US IT industry decline, rising litigation costs
>   http://www.globaltechsummit.net/press/AndyGrove.pdf
>
> points to the cheap production cost and good infrastructure in terms of
> non-rival goods (e.g. basic research, university education) and to the
> high litigation costs imposed by patent inflation in the US, and says that
> all these together are causing a rapid exodus of IT jobs to India et al.
>
> Unfortunately Grove stops short of calling for a cheap and effective (but
> politically risky) cure to the problem: a return to the concept of
> technical invention, as envisaged by the EP.  Instead he calls for
> "strengthening the patent office", i.e. more public spending on prior art
> search.  He seems to estimate this at 1 bn USD p.a., although it is not
> clear to me fromthe presentation whether this yearly 1 bn is solely for
> "strengthening the patent office".
>
> -- 
> Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
> Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation      http://swpat.ffii.org/
> 290,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents
http://noepatents.org/
>
>
>
>