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From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
> 2. European, Japanese, etc. patent laws are just as enforced.
> China is beginning to enforce these laws as well as part
> of honoring trade agreements. The bad taste comes of theft.
I think Len may be echoing a common view among Americans,
but maybe is is avoiding that outside America, there is deepseated
suspicion and even antagonism to the way the US preaches free access
to markets on the one hand and on the other insists on ever greater
monopoly rights in the name of IPR on the other.
For such people, the issue is not "how can we get the most innovation?"
or "how can we get a vibrant market?" or "how can we as users get the
best experience?" but "why should we participate in a system that leaves us
owning nothing of value?"*
Chinese countries in particular have a view of the West as duplicitous
cheats, for various historical reason from before the Opium wars
(often Britain more than the US.) Japanese are often very aware of
Perry's Black Ships, with the idea that America will bully open
markets for exploitation. So a country kowtowing to US demands that the
rest of the world obeys US-licensed monopolies does not mean that
the country approves of it: it is as much a sign of US trade "negotiations".
See http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/01/16/191212 **
for an interesting but silly editorial, in the pro-government paper. Note that
the President's comments are to a visiting US bigwig: there is considerable
pressure.
Cheers
Rick Jelliffe
* Which is also why, ultimately, I expect Open Source general-purpose software
will usually win over proprietary general-purpose software outside the US.
The various nation-interest reasons that Open Source meets seem too many:
for example, it does not seem to contribute to a nation's brain drain, because
researchers and innovators do not need to migrate to the West in order to
participate on influential software projects.
** And see http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2003/01/18/191467
written before Len's use of the word "theft".
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