From: Michal 'hramrach' Suchanek <hramrach@...>
Date: 2005-06-03T23:41:53+09:00
Subject: Re: The WIPO Intellectual Property Forum - defend your right to Ruby.

On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 07:35:23AM +0900, John Carter wrote:
> Here is an opportunity to fight the new Imperialism. 
> Intellectual Property.                               
> 
... 
> Asia should view WIPO as Imperialism and Colonialism taken into a new
> domain, intellectual property.
> 
> The West is basically saying to Asia, as they did in the Bad Old days of
> Colonialism, we will let you rent the property that we have stolen from
> you.
> 
> They may be your own ideas, you may have developed them yourselves, but
> you will have to pay us rent for them.
> 
Hello

Either I have missed something or your view of the IP problem is
somewhat obscured and biased.

For one, the patents are awarded in certain country. So if you are
Japanese, you can get the wheel(!) patented in Japan before a corporation
does. But it is independent of the fact that it is already patented in
Australia.

The general problems with patents are
 - You only pay to get something patented, there is nobody opposing
   patantability of trivial ideas. Thus the number and significance of
   patents is proportional to money invested in patent lawyers, not to
   the amount of actual innovation contributed.
 - Although you would probably lose if you litigated against car
   industry that they infringe on your wheel patent, there is nothing
   that would stop you from defending similar trivial software patents
   in court, except lack of money.
 - Even the most powerful corporations must fear a flood of patent suits
   that they cannot financially survive. For an individual or a small
   company even a single patent suit may be devastating. And it is not
   about winning or losing yet, it is about paying the expenses for
   several years of examinations at court.

Note that the corporations that own the large patent portfolios (either
to make money on suing everybody around the globe or to protect
themseves) are international. Even if larger portion of them was
originally founded in US than Asia it is irrelevant. Most hire people in
the parts of the world where people are cheap, and file patents in all
countries where it is possible.

How is this related to colonialism is beyond me. I'm sure that Asian
people own large portions of the stock of originally US corporations,
and vice versa. And all are stock holders are demanding that the value
of their stock should be kept as high as possible, even at the price of
devastaing free software, the environment, other people, or anything
else that can be devastated "profitably" :-P

Michal Suchanek