[ox-en] [ox] Guardian 2002-03-12: Patent Nonsense (fwd)
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 09:26:04 -0500 (EST)
From the German list (but it's an english article)
Graham
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 15:20:39 +0100 (CET)
From: PILCH Hartmut <phm a2e.de>
Reply-To: liste oekonux.de
To: debate lists.fitug.de
Cc: liste oekonux.de
Subject: [ox] Guardian 2002-03-12: Patent Nonsense
Forschungen bestätigen einen alten Verdacht: das Patentsystem wurde den
Ländern, die aus guten wirtschaftlichen Gründen nicht mitmachten, ohne
gültige ökonomische Argumente aufgedrückt. Es konnte nicht toleriert
werden, dass irgendwelche Länder zeigen, dass es ohne Patente besser geht,
und das Patentwesen hat einen Aspekt, der es bislang siegreich machte: es
erzeugt eine gut organisierte und finanzierte Lobby mit gesetzgeberischer
Macht.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 15:17:50 +0100 (CET)
From: PILCH Hartmut <phm a2e.de>
To: neues ffii.org
Cc: swpat ffii.org
Subject: Guardian 2002-03-12: Patent Nonsense
http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,665969,00.html
Patent nonsense
Companies now demanding intellectual property rights were built up
without them
George Monbiot
Tuesday March 12, 2002
The Guardian
...
In Industrialisation without National Patents, published in 1971, the
economic historian Eric Schiff tells the story of the emergence of
some of Europe's biggest corporations. They came into being in
Switzerland and the Netherlands during the period (1850-1907 in
Switzerland; 1869-1912 in the Netherlands) in which neither country
recognised patents. Some of them appear to owe their very existence to
this exemption.
[...]
Switzerland and the Netherlands eventually adopted patent laws in
response to threats from other industrialised nations. This, Schiff
argues, was a political decision, not an economic one. It is, he
notes, "difficult to avoid the impression" that the absence of patent
laws "furthered, rather than hampered development". The two countries
relied for their growth not upon exclusive rights but upon high
educational standards and technical ability.
These examples do not necessarily suggest that the abandonment of
patent protection is an essential precondition for development. But
they do indicate that it can, in the right circumstances, be an
effective tool. This tool has been denied to poor nations, partly as a
result of energetic lobbying by the very companies which once made use
of it.
[...]
www.monbiot.com
--
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 signatures against software patents http://www.noepatents.org/
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