'There Is No Human Right To Patent Protection' -- UN Special Rapporteur

[norseamd]

There is no human right to patent protection. The right to protection of moral and material interests cannot be used to defend patent laws that inadequately respect the right to participate in cultural life, to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications, to scientific freedoms and the right to food and health and the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.

Patents, when properly structured, may expand the options and well-being of all people by making new possibilities available. Yet, they also give patent-holders the power to deny access to others, thereby limiting or denying the public’s right of participation to science and culture. The human rights perspective demands that patents do not extend so far as to interfere with individuals' dignity and well-being. Where patent rights and human rights are in conflict, human rights must prevail.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...patent-protection-un-special-rapporteur.shtml

 

[shira]

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...patent-protection-un-special-rapporteur.shtml

I think the main point she's making is:

The human rights perspective demands that patents do not extend so far as to interfere with individuals' dignity and well-being. Where patent rights and human rights are in conflict, human rights must prevail.

Most of us would agree that that's correct in principle. The dispute is over under what circumstances, and to what extent, human rights should trump patent rights.

 

[Sonikku]

Corporations are people, so their rights must prevail.

 

[K7SN]

We have trivial patents that were used long before some corporation with a team of patent attorneys carved up common knowledge and locked anyone but the carvers out by denying rights; this is bovine scat.

Alexander Graham Bell is a great example of what is wrong with patents where only the haves can have; "the original telephone was in fact invented by Antonio Meucci, a penniless Italian who did not speak a word of English and could not afford to patent his discovery.

Alexander Graham Bell? He was just a successful patent applicant and some would say, thief.

According to the US Congress, Bell was a cunning opportunist who took all the credit for a more brilliant scientist’s work. The House of Representatives voted to recognize mechanical genius Antonio Meucci as the father of modern communications, following a protracted battle by historians and Italian Americans.

The real inventor of the telephone, Meucci, born April 13, 1808, had been working in Cuba in the 1830s, developing methods for treating illnesses using electric shocks, when he discovered the ability of sound to travel through electrical impulses. He later moved to Staten Island to follow up on his discovery. In 1860—which was 16 years before Bell claimed to have invented the telephone—Meucci demonstrated his teletrofono in New York, but could not afford the $250 required to register a patent.

Bell, who took an interest in Meucci’s invention, convinced him to share his research material. They shared a lab together and Bell had full access to Meucci’s materials. Bell made good and clever use of Meucci before coming up with his own “invention” and applying for a patent in his own name. Meucci duly protested, but lacking connections, was unable to convince anyone that Alexander Graham Bell had stolen his ideas.

Under general patent laws, then and today, Bell should have credited Meucci and agreed to share royalties with him.

Beset with debt, Meucci could not afford the $10 fee for maintaining the patent caveat and temporarily gave up pursuit of Bell in 1874. Two years later, Bell, uncontested by Meucci, was granted ownership of the patent.

Interestingly, another contender, Elisha Gray, had also submitted a patent for the telephone some hours before Bell, but due to a technicality, Bell was the registrant whose application won.

Meucci finally decided to sue Bell, charging him with fraud in the Supreme Court. The case looked rather promising for Meucci, but unfortunately, before any proceedings could begin, Meucci died on October 18, 1889.

In 2001, the United States Congress took the extraordinary decision of doing justice to Meucci, passing a resolution officially according recognition to Meucci as the real inventor of the telephone, stating that “if Meucci had been able to pay the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell.” The US Congress further stated that given all the facts of the patent disputes between Gray and Bell, under no terms should Alexander Graham Bell have been awarded the patent for the telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1876.

Alexander Graham Bell was posthumously stripped of his dubious honor as the inventor of the telephone. 'Justice' was finally served—well, sort of. ..."

The citation for the above and more can be found at http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/who-invented-the-telephone.htm

 

[Fern]

Has the term "human rights" been this badly distorted?

No, patent holders have no "human rights" to patent protection. (Congress can modify them or eliminate as it sees fit. Not so with "human rights".)

Nor do people have a "human right" enjoy the fruits of others' labor (patent rights) without paying.

UN is dumb as F. (Looks to me like attempt to force wealthier nations to subsidize poor nations.)

Fern

 

[norseamd]

Has the term "human rights" been this badly distorted?

No, patent holders have no "human rights" to patent protection. (Congress can modify them or eliminate as it sees fit. Not so with "human rights".)

Nor do people have a "human right" enjoy the fruits of others' labor (patent rights) without paying.

UN is dumb as F. (Looks to me like attempt to force wealthier nations to subsidize poor nations.)

Fern

Huge pharmaceutical companies are looking to raise pricing on major disease treatments and medicines, ban generics, lengthen medicinal patents, and prevent any countries, especially third world countries with major large scale disease problems, from implementing large scale disease programs like what was done with smallpox and polio in the 20th century.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The best middle-ground is that people in poor countries should be given access to under-patent drugs they could not otherwise afford, but citizens of first-world countries should subsidize the corporations that went through the time and $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ of developing said drugs. If three hundred million Joe taxpayers can't share the burden, why should a relatively tiny drug company do so?

 

[Indus]

Do you think we could sue Iran for not respecting our patents on drones?

Or Pakistan for not respecting our patents on nukes and selling them to North Korea?

 

[MagickMan]

UN is dumb as F. (Looks to me like attempt to force wealthier nations to subsidize poor nations.)

I've lost count how many times they've jumped the shark lately. Any credibility they had left, which wasn't much, has been flushed down the shitter. This is one of the few areas where I agree with Trump, they no longer matter and we should just leave.

 

[boomerang]

Who is John Galt?

 

[norseamd]

“Any white person who brings the elements of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it is great that some people did, and discovered here what they couldn’t do anywhere else in the world and what the Indians, if there are any racist Indians today, do not believe to this day: respect for individual rights.”

So obviously the individual who said this would never talk about logic without them actually being logical themself?

 

[sandorski]

Has the term "human rights" been this badly distorted?

No, patent holders have no "human rights" to patent protection. (Congress can modify them or eliminate as it sees fit. Not so with "human rights".)

Nor do people have a "human right" enjoy the fruits of others' labor (patent rights) without paying.

UN is dumb as F. (Looks to me like attempt to force wealthier nations to subsidize poor nations.)

Fern

Do Human Rights only exist to those who can Afford them?

There is utility in Patents, but they often do interfere with our concepts of Ethics and Rights. This declaration is merely pointing out that we need to seek a balance within the areas that deny people their basic Rights.

 

[who?]

Who is John Galt?

The main character in "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

 

[1prophet]

Do Human Rights only exist to those who can Afford them?

There is utility in Patents, but they often do interfere with our concepts of Ethics and Rights. This declaration is merely pointing out that we need to seek a balance within the areas that deny people their basic Rights.

A solution already exists for patents considered important enough.

In 1908, the Wrights warned Glenn Curtiss not to infringe their patent by profiting from flying or selling aircraft that used ailerons. Curtiss refused to pay license fees to the Wrights and sold an airplane to the Aeronautic Society of New York in 1909.


The Wrights filed a lawsuit, beginning a years-long legal conflict. They also sued foreign aviators who flew at U.S. exhibitions, including the leading French aviator Louis Paulhan.


The Curtiss people derisively suggested that if someone jumped in the air and waved his arms, the Wrights would sue.


The brothers' licensed European companies, which owned foreign patents the Wrights had received, sued manufacturers in their countries.


The European lawsuits were only partly successful. Despite a pro-Wright ruling in France, legal maneuvering dragged on until the patent expired in 1917.


A German court ruled the patent not valid due to prior disclosure in speeches by Wilbur Wright in 1901 and Octave Chanute in 1903. In the U.S. the Wrights made an agreement with the Aero Club of America to license airshows which the Club approved, freeing participating pilots from a legal threat.


Promoters of approved shows paid fees to the Wrights.[8] The Wright brothers won their initial case against Curtiss in February 1913, but the decision was appealed.




The brothers wrote to Samuel F Cody in the UK, making a claim that he had infringed their patents but Cody stated that he had used wing-warping on his man-carrying kites before their flights.[9]


The Wrights' preoccupation with the legal issue hindered their development of new aircraft designs, and by 1910 Wright aircraft were inferior to those made by other firms in Europe.[10] Indeed, aviation development in the U.S. was suppressed to such an extent that when the country entered World War I no acceptable American-designed aircraft were available, and U.S. forces were compelled to use French machines.


In January 1914, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in favor of the Wrights against the Curtiss company, which continued to avoid penalties through legal tactics.

The patent pool solution

In 1917, the two major patent holders, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked the building of new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I.


The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization (in other terms a Patent pool), the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association.[11][12][13]


All aircraft manufacturers were required to join the association, and each member was required to pay a comparatively small blanket fee (for the use of aviation patents) for each airplane manufactured;[11] of that the major part would go to the Wright-Martin and Curtiss companies, until their respective patents expire.[7][14]


This arrangement was designed to last only for the duration of the war, but in 1918, the litigation was never renewed. By this time, Wilbur had died (in May 1912) and Orville had sold his interest in the Wright Company to a group of New York financiers (in October 1915) and retired from the business. The "patent war" had come to an end.

 

[DCal430]

This is the same group that supports things like Blasphemy Laws, and that killing atheist for apostasy is not a human rights violation.

 

[Belegost]

the right [..] to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications

When exactly did this become a right?

Because I have failed to enjoy my right to the scientific progress of lunar travel since that time, and I rather feel I need to contact my lawyer to demand I be given that enjoyment posthaste.

 

[PokerGuy]

They apparently believe enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor, ingenuity or invention to be a "human right". More stupidity from an organization that has lost all credibility anyway.

 

[CPA]

I think the main point she's making is:



Most of us would agree that that's correct in principle. The dispute is over under what circumstances, and to what extent, human rights should trump patent rights.

The problem is that it will be interpreted broadly and will allow third world countries to use this as an excuse in infringing on valid patents.

 

[Jaskalas]

They apparently believe enjoying the fruit of someone else's labor, ingenuity or invention to be a "human right". More stupidity from an organization that has lost all credibility anyway.

You would use big government to enforce a monopoly on others?

 

[norseamd]

You would use big government to enforce a monopoly on others?

This. Always entertaining to see so selfnamed free market enthusiasts proselytize for nonfree market regulations from big government.

 

[MovingTarget]

Who is John Galt?

Who is John Galt? A longwinded, insufferable prick. :thumbsdown:

 

[werepossum]

I've lost count how many times they've jumped the shark lately. Any credibility they had left, which wasn't much, has been flushed down the shitter. This is one of the few areas where I agree with Trump, they no longer matter and we should just leave.

Agreed. On any given issue, the UN is firmly in the camp of Stupid or Evil, if not both.

 

[Ausm]

I think the main point she's making is:



Most of us would agree that that's correct in principle. The dispute is over under what circumstances, and to what extent, human rights should trump patent rights.

A very profound statement ...I would like a Rightist to comment on how a fetus and a corporation trumps common man?

 

[K7SN]

Patents to return cost of development and profit from your work are not my complaint; a typical patent last 14 years but manipulation by patent attorney's sometimes let a patent, slightly modified to sat in force for another 14 years if the patent attorney is clever; then another 14 years, etc. How can changing the number of teeth on a cog or the color of a warning sign make your patent on a rock remover valid another 14 years;

If you can prove patented product was used by you prior to the patent you can use it but to get the co-benefits of the patent you have to pony up big time; that is my only complaint. Those who feel a sense of humanity in providing relief in third world countries have reason to seek compromise but not elimination.

The X-Y Position Indicator by Engelbart was patented in 1970, the patent ran out Nov 17, 1984. Didn't slow down the development of the web as we know did it because Engelbart was a reasonable kind of guy. Mega-corporations are not reasonable kind of guys.