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| Authored by: Tolerance on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 09:37 AM EDT |
Recall, if you would, that while the US might see fit to patent software, other
nations do not regard the IP clause of the US constitution as binding on
themselves.
Now, it is true that the US has succeeded in getting its view of 'intellectual
property' coded in trade treaties which are essentially a gun held to the head
of nations with weaker economies. Nonetheless, as long as US economic power
continues to decline in relative terms, those nations won't do the bidding of
WIPO. Other cultures, notably Europe, tend to regard the US notion of software
patents as an imposition on free thought.
I predict there will be increasingly successful efforts to circumvent, subvert,
or rewrite the WIPO rules to ensure that such patents are not respected. Shades
of the Doha round débâcle)- we already see something similar occurring with
medical treatment and even drug patents.
One small postscript. The US 'copyright and patent' clause justifies its
existence on the grounds that, as you suggest, it's better to have trade secrets
out where all can use them. But the imposition of treble damages on those who
wilfully infringe patents means the opposite happens: engineers are ordered by
managers not, ever, to read useful patents in their field.
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Grumpy old man[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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