Fwd: Patent lies- George Monbiot

[Krishna E. Bera]

Lest the notion go unchallenged, that
a monopoly on the use of a particular piece of knowledge
is required to spur introduction of new technologies,
here is a little history.
Imo, this kind of "protection" does nothing useful at all
except provide job security for lawyers and bullies,
i.e. it is racketeering.
Yes, patents are different from copyrights, but
the same baseless arguments are often used to justify them.
If they are applied with the original purpose kept in focus
they just might achieve that purpose, or on the other hand
they might simply have been a bad idea in the first place.
-keb


Outlook / Patent nonsense from the rich world's corporate giants

Comment
George Monbiot

The most surprising aspect of the steel war launched by the United States is 
that anyone is surprised. For all the talk of increasing freedom, the only 
consistent trend in global trade rules over the past 10 years has been the 
drifttowards protectionism.

The rich nations have repeatedly promised to phase out agricultural subsidies 
and remove the tariffs on textiles imported from the poor world, but those 
promises have been broken. Instead they have battened down the hatches by 
granting to the corporations they shelter new laws defending "intellectual 
property".

At the world trade talks last November, the poor nations appeared to win 
ground. They would be allowed to continue to import cheap copies of the 
patented drugs required to fight epidemics. But there was a catch. While 
nations will be permitted to buy these drugs, by 2005 the countries
manufacturing them will be forbidden to sell them; the rules defending
public health won't be worth the paper they're written on.

New global trade rules have also allowed big corporations to patent crop 
varieties and, in effect, the genes of plants, animals and human beings. The 
corporations argue that this new protectionism is essential to stimulate 
innovation and investment. There are many ways in which this claim could be 
challenged, but I may have stumbled across a fascinating one contained within 
the histories of the very companies which now insist that intellectual 
property rights are the prerequisites of development.

In Industrialisation Without National Patents, published in 1971, the 
economic historian Eric Schiff says some of Europe's biggest corporations 
came into being in Switzerland and the Netherlands in the period (1850-1907 
in Switzerland; 1869-1912 in the Netherlands) in which neither country 
recognised patents. Some appear to owe their very existence to this 
exemption. In both nations this situation appears to have contributed
to massive economic growth and innovation.

Switzerland was a poor country, but in 1859 a small company based in Basel 
"borrowed" the aniline dying process patented in Britain two years earlier. 
The company, Ciba, swiftly outstripped firms in Britain. In 1995 Ciba merged 
with another Swiss firm, Sandoz, to form Novartis. Novartis was one of the 
companies that successfully lobbied for the European convention allowing 
companies to patent genes. It was also one of the firms that fought the South 
African government's attempt to buy cheap copies of its patented drugs to 
treat HIV patients. Now, having merged with Zeneca to form an even bigger 
company, Syngenta, it is extending its intellectual property rights still 
further by developing seeds that don't reproduce.

But Switzerland's growth during this period did not rely solely upon 
purloining other nations' patented processes. In 1875 Daniel Peter invented 
milk chocolate. In 1879 Rudolf Lindt developed chocolat fondant. In
  1886 Julius Maggi invented powdered soup. Later he developed stock cubes. 
In 1865 Henri Nestlé developed a cereal for children. In 1998 the 
International Chamber of Commerce lobbied the World Trade Organisation in 
support of corporate rights over plants, animals and genes. It argued that 
"the protection of intellectual property" is "essential for economic growth". 
Its chairman was Helmut Maucher, also the chief executive of Nestlé, which 
conquered the world without any intellectual property protection whatever.

In the Netherlands too, the absence of patents appears to have done little to 
arrest the growth of industry. In the early 1870s two companies, Jurgens and 
Van den Bergh, commandeered a patented French recipe and created margarine. 
Jurgens and Van den Bergh later merged with a British firm to form Unilever. 
Like Novartis and Nestlé, Unilever is one of the most influential members of 
Europabio, the lobby group now pressing for ever stricter patent protections 
for big corporations.

Switzerland and the Netherlands adopted patent laws in response to threats 
from other nations. This, Schiff argues, was a political decision, not an 
economic one. It is "difficult to avoid the impression" that the absence of 
patent laws "furthered, rather than hampered development".
These examples indicate that in the right circumstances the abandonment of 
patent protection can be an effective tool. But this tool has been denied to 
poor nations.

Those who have challenged the inequalities of global trade have pointed out 
that some of the richest nations once used tariff barriers to build their 
economies. But the history of patent protection suggests that that is not the 
only means by which the rich nations have raised the drawbridge after 
entering the castle. When it suits the rich countries to impose free trade, 
they do so. When it suits them to impose protectionism, they argue that this 
is the only path to development. But woe betide the poor nation that seeks to 
apply the lessons of the past.

The Guardian Weekly 11-4-2002, page 20
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