NationStates Jolt Archive

Resoultion #45 (Universal Copyright/Patent Law) imho is nonsense, because it says »Copyright/Patent Law be the same between all UN members.« but it doesn't tell us which are these laws.
In particular there is not mentioned what can be protected by copyright and patent laws, but this is the main aspect in which national laws could differ.
A harmonization not dealing with this is completely worthless.

So I proposed repealing it and substituting it by a new and better well-engineered resolution. This is the place to discuss ideas for the new proposal:

My proposal: What should be protectable and what not:
Internationally protected should be trademarks, creative work (by copyright) and inventions (by patents)

General limitations:
Trademarks, copyrights and patents not used over a period of five years are no longer protected.
Copyrights and patents are not everlasting. UN member states should keep some national sovereignty by the right to set validity periods for copyrights and patents individually. However there should be a maximum for this period, which I propose to be 20 years for patents and 50 years for copyright. (I don't think limiting the validity period for trademarks would be useful)
Idea behind: The goal is to to reward creative people and companies for their work but also to establish a fair balance between rewarding inventors and creative people with protective rights and the interest of general public.)

Limitations for creative work:
"Creative" work that lacks inventive ingenuity gets no protection.

Limitations for patents:
Inventions protected by a patent must be new.
I think, medicaments, therapies, mathematic formulas, physical theories, algorithms, computer programs, bussiness ideas, genes and biological lifeforms shoud not be patentable, because the interest of general public outweighs the one of private individuals in monopolisation of the above mentioned.

Limitations for trademarks:
Colors, single characters, common words and very simple sounds shouldn't be able to be protected trademarks.
(This aims at preventing monopolization of language and culture of growing exuberantly.)


The general idea is to limit the monopolization of culture, in particular ideas, techniques and creative work to a fair and balanced level, in order to enrich general public and boost cultural and particularly technical development as well as to enlarge the economic freedom.

Just a note: if you want to do this, you'll have to not only repeal UCPL, but then also manage to get your proposal pass. It's not impossible, but just something to keep in mind.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the laws applying to patents, but does that basically mean that no one may profit from any computer programs that are written? If so, are you therefore trying to FORCE the world to accept all programs as freeware software?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the laws applying to patents, but does that basically mean that no one may profit from any computer programs that are written? If so, are you therefore trying to FORCE the world to accept all programs as freeware software?
Of course not. You are misunderstanding. Software will be still protected by copyright. So copying software without permission will still be illegal.
Perhaps this should be stated clearly for non-experts.

Just a note: if you want to do this, you'll have to not only repeal UCPL, but then also manage to get your proposal pass. It's not impossible, but just something to keep in mind.
I know. But I am optimistic. The goal of this thread is to find a position that can be supportet by many nations.

I would be delighted to see UCPL repealed, but would prefer not to see a replacement, since any such replacement is likely to cause problems for nations adopting, for example, a creative commons policy. As things stand, the original legislation is such garbled nonsense that it's easy for member states to pretty much ignore it. A replacement may make matters rather more complicated for us.

Varia Yefremova
Speaker to the UN

I would be delighted to see UCPL repealed, but would prefer not to see a replacement, since any such replacement is likely to cause problems for nations adopting, for example, a creative commons policy. As things stand, the original legislation is such garbled nonsense that it's easy for member states to pretty much ignore it. A replacement may make matters rather more complicated for us.

Varia Yefremova
Speaker to the UN

I agree with my esteemed colleague, and would like to suggest that a replacement would be unfair to those nations among us who are anarchistic and prefer not to have such laws.