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Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

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Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#171

Post by tptacek »

indrax wrote: post #158
tptacek wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My next question would be "what is a persuasive argument against intellectual property for those of us who don't reject the concept of private property altogether?"

Do you have a persuasive (to you) argument for it? Is the structure of that argument the same as the structure of your argument for physical property? (in which case my argument would be that there are very relevant differences) There are pragmatic arguments against it: The costs copyright and patents impose on the market are huge. Not the prices, but all the good things that become difficult or illegal to do. On pri…

Respectfully, I asked if you had an argument against IP that worked for those of us who do not believe that the whole concept of private property is flawed. I asked because you said "next question". Asking me to justify IP is not responsive to my question.

The only argument I see in here is that copying might not be on a par with fraud and slander. Frankly, I'm a lot more worried about criminalizing slander than I am about criminalizing copying. Slander law actually does clamp down on free speech. Copyright law just prevents free-riding.

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#172

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #171
indrax wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a persuasive (to you) argument for it? Is the structure of that argument the same as the structure of your argument for physical property? (in which case my argument would be that there are very relevant differences) There are pragmatic arguments against it: The costs copyright and patents impose on the market are huge. Not the prices, but all the good things that become difficult or illegal to do. On pri…

Respectfully, I asked if you had an argument against IP that worked for those of us who do not believe that the whole concept of private property is flawed. I asked because you said "next question". Asking me to justify IP is not responsive to my question. The only argument I see in here is that copying might not be on a par with fraud and slander. Frankly, I'm a lot more worried about criminalizing slander than I am…

> Frankly, I'm a lot more worried about criminalizing slander than I am about criminalizing copying. Slander law actually does clamp down on free speech. Copyright law just prevents free-riding.

Indeed, I think the area of IP with the most significant impact on free speech is the one that hardly gets talked about: trademark. Causes of action for dilution and tarnishment have major free speech implications. IMHO, 15 USC 1125 is unconstitutional to the extent it allows an action for tarnishment.

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#173

Post by rayiner »

bediger4000 wrote: post #134
dragonwriter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance, I have a leatherman "Micra" in my pocket. It's my property. I can tell I still own it by putting my hand in my pocket... yep, it's still mine. You've confused possession with ownership. If you loan it to someone -- or someone steals it -- you won't find it in your pocket, you won't possess it, but you will still own it. Ownership is a relation created in law. It is different than possession. In fact,…

Spoken like a true gentleman, and you raised a few good points. I still feel that there's a difference between physical property and "intellectual property" - probably because "intellectual property" is mostly licensed. It's the licensing that sets apart "intellectual property" and it's the giant, state support for enforcement of licenses that makes the difference. If we talked about people leasing or renting softwar…

I "license" the apartment I live in, and the state has elaborate enforcement mechanisms for kicking me out when I breach the terms of the license.

Independent invention is definitely a distinguishing characteristic, and the shakiest part of the rationale for patents. IMHO, independent invention should be a defense to patent infringement. That said, it's not really implicated in the drug industry, where the folks doing the copying don't have the resources to invent and test the drugs independently.

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#174

Post by mcv »

wirelesskarma wrote: post #106
Taniwha wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in New Zealand - we've chosen to have socialised medicine - we buy drugs in bulk, for the whole country - it gives the national drug buying agency lots of market power - it doesn't force drug companies to sell to us under cost - but it does pick and choose hich drugs it buys with its limited budget - if they want our business they have to compete with other companies in front of a knowledgable experienced buye…

Same for us in Australia. Both Australia and New Zealand are getting the spiky end of the stick in regards to pharmaceuticals, we have a similar system of socialised medicine.

It's probably very similar for most industrialized countries to some extent. In Netherland (which probably has the most expensive health care in Europe), insurance companies negotiate about the prices, which means those companies decide which medicine is and isn't covered, and while they still have a reasonable amount of negotiating power, it's not as much as that of a more centralized approach. Still better than the US approach, but certainly the weakest of the EU.

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#175

Post by mcv »

hellbanner wrote: post #58

In Spam Nation , the primary reason spam is successful (why people click those weird ads) is because they get working drugs for cheap that in many cases are chemically indifferent to their expensive prescription counterparts. http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/spam-nation/

So if access to health care for the poor isn't a good enough reason to make drugs cheaper, then surely finally killing spam is?

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#176

Post by Animats »

ScottBurson wrote: post #156
Animats wrote: post #79

The article missed some of the other giveaways to Big Pharma. One is a narrowing of the patent obviousness requirement for "me-too" drugs. Claritin (loratidine) is the classic example. Loratidine is a stereoisomer; there's a left handed and a right handed version of the molecule. One has an anti-allergy effect, and the other doesn't seem to do much. (That's very common; biology isn't symmetrical at the molecular leve…

Is it really clear that the draft TPP language quoted here would reverse the Clarinex decision? It seems to me that the phrase "involves an inventive step" would permit challenges based on obviousness. See for example [0]. While what is "obvious" and what is "inventive" can always be debated, I don't see that this language alters the ground on which that debate will play out. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventi…

It's intended to allow patents on "me too" drugs generally.[1][2][3]

[1] http://www.healthline.com/health-news/would-the-trans-partne... [2] https://www.citizen.org/documents/specific%20provisions%20fi... [3] http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/06/04/opinion/implicati...

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#177

Post by michaelbuddy »

walterbell wrote: post #138
click170 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but how do you do that when the supreme court has ruled that money equals free speech? There's lots of people who can see that money in politics is the problem. How do we solve it though? Wait for a supreme court judge to die and hope their replacement aligns with our views on this topic? Petition the whitehouse? Fund a kickstarter campaign to get our own people lobbying for this?

Fund alternative media whose cost structure is much lower than TV networks, e.g. this TISA explainer video on banking, public services regulation and corporations, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wwkikCpQ6pk . The Young Turks is the top online news show on YouTube, I wish they had episode transcripts. There is a related PAC to reverse Citizens United, http://www.wolf-pac.com

TYT isn't really news in that they require the news to function. They comment on the other news gathering interests. So they can't really standalone.

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#178

Post by gress »

oldmanjay wrote: post #128
gress wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound as though being easily manipulated by people with a lot of resources is a character flaw, rather than a characteristic of all humans throughout history. It is unlikely (and maybe even undesirable) that we are going to be able to easily overcome our inherent susceptibility to influence. Therefore if we are to improve things we must recognize that this is part of who we are, and design our institution…

Realism on all sides of this debate would be amazingly helpful. For instance, this continual disingenuous cry of "the corporations!" is stupid on its face. Are corporations autonomous intelligent entities outside of the will of powerful people? No! It's powerful people lobbying for rules that will help them. Destroy the concept of corporations tomorrow and you will still have powerful people who bend government to th…

Why do you bring this up? Do you think my comment involved taking a side?

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#179

Post by fixxer »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #67
fixxer wrote: post #2

Can a progressive democrat please explain to me why their hero is supporting this? PS To those trying to claim he isn't a progressive... Obama may not be the progressive you want, but he is the one you deserve.

He's not my hero. I didn't vote for him mainly because I'm not in a swing state; but if I were and you ran him against Romney and Paul Ryan tomorrow, I'd hold my nose and go vote for him. I might even go find myself an ACORN volunteer t shirt and go register a bunch of poors to go vote for him too. Go ahead though, and tell me how much better we'd all feel about TPP if your horse would've won.

I haven't had a horse in any of these races. I despise them all; I especially despise those sad true believers out there that pin their hopes to an empty suit.

Re: Leaked: What's in TPP’s intellectual property chapter

#180

Post by Zigurd »

rayiner wrote: post #114
tomp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a rather empty argument. Sure, protection intellectual "property" is important for encouraging innovation, but the length of protection must be carefully balanced to prevent rent-seeking (resting on laurels of past innovation). Currently, the terms are ridiculous for many categories (software patents, copyright). In particular, there's nothing that "encourages innovation" when terms get extended retroactively…

That's an orthogonal point. You could make a similar argument for private land ownership (why should someone be able to keep a parcel in his ownership for decades if he doesn't plan to use it?)

> why should someone be able to keep a parcel in his ownership for decades if he doesn't plan to use it?

Property taxes are structured to discourage productive land sitting idle.

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