10.31.14
Protectionist Reign: Corporations in Complete Control of Everything With Domination Over Patent Law
The golden rule: those who have gold make the rules
Summary: How multinational corporations, joined by the corporate press that they are funding, promote a corporations- but not people-friendly patent policy in north America
Some time after a Reuters article that quotes mostly patent lawyers and speaks for large corporations (we saw it reposted in about a dozen large newspapers, mostly corporate press) the Wall Street media came out with a similar report, repeating some of it later and saying: “Companies that build their business models around aggressive patent litigation are finding that approach less lucrative after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and stricter government policies.
“Here again we see how large corporations steer policy, irrespective of what the public wants.”“Patent lawsuits filed in the third quarter declined 23 percent from the second quarter, according to the industry coalition Unified Patents. About 88 percent of the drop is because of fewer cases by companies that make more than half their revenue from patent licensing and sue computer, electronics and software companies, the group said yesterday.
““The drop is real and likely permanent given the many structural changes to the patent system and patent litigation over the past couple years,” said Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.”
The site of the CCIA says that articles like these are not helping. They help large corporations, that is for sure. The corporate media typically pushes these talking points. “Alice is helping get rid of some bad patents, but those are just a drop in the bucket,” says Matt Levy, who added this cartoon.
Professor Geist, in the mean time, explains how corporate Canada (his phrase) is interfering with patent reform. To quote: “The Internet Association, a U.S.-based industry association that counts most of the biggest names in the Internet economy as its members (including Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, and Yahoo), recently released a policy paper on how Canada could become more competitive in the digital economy. The report’s recommendations on tax reform generated some attention, but buried within the 27-page report was a call for patent reform.”
Further down he says: “Yet despite the opportunity to give the green light to combat patent trolls, the Canadian business community urged caution. According an internal summary document on the discussions, Cisco warned that the reforms “could do more harm than good.” Jim Balsille, the co-founder of Blackberry, indicated that he supported the intent of the patent troll reforms, but cautioned about the need to get the details right. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce also expressed concern with the reforms, arguing that the measures could legislate against legitimate assertion of patent rights and that they could create a chilling effect.”
Here again we see how large corporations steer policy, irrespective of what the public wants. Civil disobedience may be in order and in TechDirt there is a new article about those who knowingly and deliberately ignore patents that do not deserve respect or, conversely, those who insist that invalid patents can be infringed on. This system is rigged and it need to be toppled. █
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