ipr hype in Taiwan

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> Taiwan should continue to be a nation built on innovation, rather than try

Just a sidenote: I don't know whether Alex wanted to get embroiled in the
discussion about nation-building in Taiwan.  There is already a state
called "Republic of China" on Taiwan, which ruled the mainland until 1949
and is not in a hurry to reunite under undemocratic conditions, but by far
not everybody in Taiwan would agree that there must be a taiwanese nation
state in the long term.

Btw I have a Chinese book hyping software patents, written by an author
from Taiwan and spread by patent lawyer friends on the mainland recently,
but haven't found the time to report about it.  They quote the great
achievements of their german patent lawyer friends in softening caselaw
and making everything patentable.  This is important for them, because
both sides of the Taiwan strait have german law and caselaw, including
phrases about forces of nature, in their patentability statutes.  Now they
are pointing to Germany as the authoritative country that is giving up on
limiting patentability.  So we need some more articles there that point to
the reversal of this tide, as seen in the EP vote of last year.  We are
seeing far too little echo of this (also in the US, where EFF and Pubpat
are focussing attention on the novelty of individual patents and failing 
to combine this with the general fight against swpat which isn't over 
anywhere and will never be).

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
330,000 votes 3000 firms against software patents    http://noepatents.org/