NationStates Jolt Archive

Apparently, companies in the developped world are trying to patent or have already patented traditional East African designs. More infos here:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37165

What can I say except "WTF?". In my opinion even if this might have been legal (despite prior art), but it SURELY is immoral!

And had these countries had their own network of IP laws, this would not even be an issue. :D

Yes that is ridiculous.

Do some Western countries not have laws related to copyrighting culturally inherent things or designs? I thought they did?

Just like who could copyright the peace sign or Scottish kilt patterns..

Congratulations, corporations. You've swept into an undeveloped country, stolen traditional designs under the pretence of laws that these people don't even know about and that were created to protect honest and fair people. Every time I read about something like this it just makes me so mad.

Wow. I had no idea this was going on. This is disgusting on so many levels. How perverted do you have to be to even think about patenting something like that?

The whole article just brings up one issue worse than the next:

But many artists remain unaware of the danger of the theft of designs. Kamore said that MMET has started educating its members. ''Many are ignorant about intellectual property rights. I told one that his design risked being stolen by someone else if he did not protect it. He responded that he would come up with another design if this happened. This is the level of ignorance.''
How fucked up is it that because we, the oh so civilized western world, decided that ideas are now property, the people who don't see it like that are now "ignorant" and have to be "educated" to attain our hallowed level of looking at things?

She wondered whether there was an ulterior motive behind the trade fair which ended this week in Nairobi.

"Why were Kenyans told to bring all their products to the exhibition? Most are not exposed to the issue of intellectual property rights. This may provide a chance for their work to be pirated,'' Wangari told IPS. The trade fair with the theme ''One Village One Product'' was supported by the Japanese government. God, that's fucked up.

Wow. I had no idea this was going on. This is disgusting on so many levels. How perverted do you have to be to even think about patenting something like that?

The whole article just brings up one issue worse than the next:


How fucked up is it that because we, the oh so civilized western world, decided that ideas are now property, the people who don't see it like that are now "ignorant" and have to be "educated" to attain our hallowed level of looking at things?

God, that's fucked up.

Welcome to capitalism.

Welcome to capitalism.

Welcome to socialism, you mean. Copyright and other "intellectual property" laws are government granted monopolies.

The sad sorry truth of capitalism huh?

IP law (at least in any jurisdiction I am familiar with) does not work like that.
If something is a long standing commonly used design, you cannot get exclusive rights to it - you can only protect new IP (basically).

If the company holding this legal protection ever tried to exercise it against someone who has been using it as a cultural design, it would be invalidated immediately. Something like this is only usable against other similar corporate entities. If some London firm wants to use it as a trademark to keep another London firm from using something, fine, but it will not allow them to keep Nairobi merchants from using it.

Hmm... I see... this is... fairly ludicrous.

Welcome to capitalism.

The sad sorry truth of capitalism huh?

Yeah. :(

If the company holding this legal protection ever tried to exercise it against someone who has been using it as a cultural design, it would be invalidated immediately. Something like this is only usable against other similar corporate entities. If some London firm wants to use it as a trademark to keep another London firm from using something, fine, but it will not allow them to keep Nairobi merchants from using it.

QFT.

The sad sorry truth of capitalism huh?

No, the simple truth: capitalism needs regulation. If you can't be bothered regulating how companies do business in your country, then frankly you only have yourself to blame when the place gets sold out from under you.

Capitalism, like every other economic system, is a tool for the creation, distribution and redistribution of wealth. In a properly regulated system, it does that more efficiently and effectively than any other so far attempted, and is one of only a few that work both on the macro and micro scales.

But economic systems are like fire: wonderful servants, terrible masters. And with capitalism, the very efficiency and effectiveness that attracts us to it makes it a truly terrible destroyer when and if it gets out of control.

In this case, these nations failed to exercise due control, and now need to take extraordinary measures to get things normalized.

IP law (at least in any jurisdiction I am familiar with) does not work like that.
If something is a long standing commonly used design, you cannot get exclusive rights to it - you can only protect new IP (basically).

If the company holding this legal protection ever tried to exercise it against someone who has been using it as a cultural design, it would be invalidated immediately. Something like this is only usable against other similar corporate entities. If some London firm wants to use it as a trademark to keep another London firm from using something, fine, but it will not allow them to keep Nairobi merchants from using it.
But shouldn't the organizations quoted in that article know that? Why would they start this big education campaign then?

I'm a little confused here. The article only mentions companies registering trademarks and names, not the designs themselves. However, the article does seem to talk about designs being taken by western companies too.

It say something about their culture and society that they didn't even have laws in place to stop this from happening already.

There are no limits to evil

It say something about their culture and society that they didn't even have laws in place to stop this from happening already.

So it's the fault of the poor developing nation that their people are being exploited?

It say something about their culture and society that they didn't even have laws in place to stop this from happening already.

Which somehow justifies breaking your own laws hmmm?

No, the simple truth: capitalism needs regulation. If you can't be bothered regulating how companies do business in your country, then frankly you only have yourself to blame when the place gets sold out from under you.

I speak of those who argue for unrestricted capitalism and believe that somehow, it will create an utopia.

They do it with crops as well - go out and find a disease resistant strain of rice, say. Patent it, then charge the same people who have been growing it for generations a ton of cash to use it. Sick really.

They do it with crops as well - go out and find a disease resistant strain of rice, say. Patent it, then charge the same people who have been growing it for generations a ton of cash to use it. Sick really.

Huh? You sure about that? The only such patents I know about are on plants that have been genetically modified by a company. And of course these plants need special fertilizer and herbicides and pesticides, which are also all made and patented by said company.

Hence why Monsanto is in many ways the root of a lot of (esp. future) evil.

IP law (at least in any jurisdiction I am familiar with) does not work like that.
If something is a long standing commonly used design, you cannot get exclusive rights to it - you can only protect new IP (basically).

If the company holding this legal protection ever tried to exercise it against someone who has been using it as a cultural design, it would be invalidated immediately. Something like this is only usable against other similar corporate entities. If some London firm wants to use it as a trademark to keep another London firm from using something, fine, but it will not allow them to keep Nairobi merchants from using it.

IP law works as the judges decide it. And sorry, but the sane judges and sane court decisions are rare.

There is a movement among indigenous peoples around the world to apply for intellectual property protection. There is also a movement to oppose such a thing, as much of this IP is communal, and not necessarily suited to IP protections. Many of these 'protections' last only for a few years before needing renewal, or in some cases passing into the public domain.

The question is...why should we catalogue our knowledge, put it out there in order to apply for IP protection, and then watch it get stolen, yet again?

Some things will be appropriated, as has always happened. And good luck telling us we can't use our traditional knowledge because it's now 'yours'. But one thing we have learned over the centuries is...you can't steal what you don't know about.

Hence the 'shroud of secrecy' many aboriginal peoples live in. You don't get to learn about us until we've deemed you trustworthy. Too much has been taken from us in the the name of 'anthropological study', and this move to patent OUR knowledge, is just another in a long line of thieveries.

Huh? You sure about that? The only such patents I know about are on plants that have been genetically modified by a company. And of course these plants need special fertilizer and herbicides and pesticides, which are also all made and patented by said company.

Hence why Monsanto is in many ways the root of a lot of (esp. future) evil.
He's right (http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GEFood/FoodPatents.asp). Sorry, perhaps not the most objective source, I'll look for others, but indigenous crops are increasingly being 'patented', without added modification.

This is why we keep our medicine to ourselves:
Another patent causing outrage has been a remedy for diabetes involving eggplant, bitter gourd and jamun, the fruit of the rose apple tree extract. It has been common knowledge in India for centuries, yet again there is an attempt to patent it.

IP law (at least in any jurisdiction I am familiar with) does not work like that.
If something is a long standing commonly used design, you cannot get exclusive rights to it - you can only protect new IP (basically).

If the company holding this legal protection ever tried to exercise it against someone who has been using it as a cultural design, it would be invalidated immediately. Something like this is only usable against other similar corporate entities. If some London firm wants to use it as a trademark to keep another London firm from using something, fine, but it will not allow them to keep Nairobi merchants from using it.

TSR *tried* to copyright the word "Nazi" in conjunction with their Indiana Jones RPG.

*Tried*.

So it's the fault of the poor developing nation that their people are being exploited?

No. It says they cannot conceive of someone being so selfish as to claim what is not theirs.

Even IF they tried to enforce it, what are they going to do, exactly?
Considering the levels of ethnic violence and so forth in East Africa, I wonder what they'd do to lawyers if they found any.
...
*cough*
I think this is a very good idea. These companies should hire every lawyer they can get their hands on and prosecute those thieving Africans! Send every avalible lawyer to ensure that the rights of the corporations are enforced!
And so forth.

Even IF they tried to enforce it, what are they going to do, exactly?
Considering the levels of ethnic violence and so forth in East Africa, I wonder what they'd do to lawyers if they found any.
...

The idea is somehow different: They do not try to enforce it in East Africa but in the first world. The East Africans are only affected if they attempt to export the Kikoi.

No. It says they cannot conceive of someone being so selfish as to claim what is not theirs.Or that they can't conceive the idea that people can lay claim to ideas and notions.

The idea is somehow different: They do not try to enforce it in East Africa but in the first world. The East Africans are only affected if they attempt to export the Kikoi.
Aka, limiting their economic growth potential.

He's right (http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GEFood/FoodPatents.asp). Sorry, perhaps not the most objective source, I'll look for others, but indigenous crops are increasingly being 'patented', without added modification.

This is why we keep our medicine to ourselves:

What complete bullshit. The article has the opening argument that a company was selling GM Basmati rice and calling it Basmati. Wow, that is really destroying third world agriculture there. The big theme is that patented plants are using the same well-known names.

Patents on food are on specific genetic sequences - if some company has evaluated a specific sequence and determined its function when inserted into another plant, they deserve to benefit from this investment into genetics research. Anyone who genetically modifies a food to include this sequence in the next 20 years should pay them a royalty for having done the research.

You cannot patent the same plant some village has been growing for centuries - patents protect new and innovative things. You can patent a plant that did not exist before you and prevent people from growing your new plant without paying you a fee. I do not have a problem with that - if you don't want to pay the fee, just keep growing what you've always grown and do not use the new strain I developed.

The halfway controversial aspect are the crossbred plants. These are plants that have not been genetically modified but are just bred with another type to yield a new variety. I do not see a problem with patenting this - once again it is a new thing that has not been done before, so you should get the benefit of having been the first one to do it.

If I manage to successfully crossbred a chihuahua with a dairy cow to produce microcows which yield one glass of milk at a time... first off I should receive so many awards for such a scientific breakthrough, then I should be able to patent the chihuahua/cow hybrid so that everyone cannot run out and make mini-herds of these things without paying me some remuneration for the next 20 years. This does not mean regular cows are patented, nor are chihuahuas patented, just the innovation of breeding them together. I do not see a problem with this.

The idea is somehow different: They do not try to enforce it in East Africa but in the first world. The East Africans are only affected if they attempt to export the Kikoi.

And what are they going to do if the East Africans try to export it? Ask them politely to stop? Threaten to sue them?
I can see enforcing it against other corporations, and thats fine and dandy. But the Africans themselves either wont know, wont care, or wont be affected by this corporate sillyness, Im willing to bet. Unless theyre willing to send legal teams to Somalia and Sudan to hunt down the offices of Mubate and Sons Kikoi Export.

It say something about their culture and society that they didn't even have laws in place to stop this from happening already.

Maybe if we stop ninjaing their stuff for a second and helped them realise that can own ideas, then we wouldn't have this problem. Too bad it's not in anyone's best interests to do so.

Maybe if we stop ninjaing their stuff for a second and helped them realise that can own ideas, then we wouldn't have this problem. Too bad it's not in anyone's best interests to do so.

I don't think that's really fair. You're treating these countries the way the old colonial powers did: children that have to be protected from the big, nasty outside world.

Well, they rejected that reading, and they had the right to. But they (and we) must now consider them adults and equals - including when they make serious mistakes. If they ask for a hand, give them one, but otherwise let them clean up their own messes.

Maybe if we stop ninjaing their stuff for a second and helped them realise that can own ideas, then we wouldn't have this problem. Too bad it's not in anyone's best interests to do so.

Since when can you own an idea? A patent is not the same thing as ownership, and neither is copyright or trademark. They are government granted monopolies on things you never could own, and hopefully never will be able to own.

The solution in this particular case is less government, not more.

This is the sad result of capitalism, yes, but unregulated capitalism. A bad thing about a system does not render the system entirely faulty.

That said, I am extremely disgusted by the ridiculous theft of their intellectual property. It is their designs, not the designs of these companies.

Support piracy and spit on intellectual property rights.

EM bomb Wall Street and other capitalist establishment around the world.

CLEAN SLATE OF CREDIT FOR EVERYONE!!!11!!one!

... like there's anything we can do about it.