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Patent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.

 

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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

 

Brussels: "Conference on The Politics and Ideology of Intellectual Property".

The EXTERNAL LINKConference on The Politics and Ideology of Intellectual Property was held in Brussels from March 20 to 21, 2006. The conference attempted to bring together a broad variety of political figures and stakeholders to look at the thinking that drives current intellectual property rule-making.

A report is provided by Mr. Stefan Krempl on EXTERNAL LINKHeise.de [In German only, sorry].

Ms. Iren S. Gerhardsen EXTERNAL LINKwrote on EXTERNAL LINKIntellectual Property Watch:
"[...] The event is hosted by the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, a forum of 65 consumer organisations from the European Union and United States, which acts a consultative body. There are some 100 participants and although civil society groups are heavily represented, the presence of various industry representatives is providing grist for debate [...]"
On March 21, Ms. Iren S. Gerhardsen provided EXTERNAL LINKanother report with still further details on the proceedings in Brussels.

In the effect, there seems to be a split amongst participants over the future role of Intellectual Property quite across traditional party boundaries:
"[...] One of the underlying philosophical questions of the global IP debate that the conference is shedding light on is whether the debate may be divided into a left-right political issue. This is not the case, the moderator of one session concluded. [...]"
Some participants on the anti-IP side of the debate made perfectly clear that the current dispute is no longer deemed to be restricted to patents on computer-implemented inventions or biotechnology inventions. Mr. Krempl reported that Mr. David Hammerstein, a Member of the European Parliament, argued that the debate on software patents should be understood as a stepping stone towards a much wider discussion concerning the Knowledge Commons". Ms. Iren S. Gerhardsen reported on a contribution by Mr. Rufus Pollock of EXTERNAL LINKFFII UK:
"[...] Instead, [Mr. Rufus Pollock of FFII] said, intellectual property may be divided into roughly two camps: the rights holders and the general public, which both benefits from new work but also bears the cost and thus is the only group that has a balanced view. The problem, according to Pollock, is that the general public is poorly organised and poorly concentrated, as opposed to industry.

Pollock pointed out that 10-15 years ago when the TRIPS agreement was being discussed there was no public concern with intellectual property rights. But this is now starting to grow, and in 40 years, Pollock predicted, there will be an equivalent IP movement much as there is in the environment sector today with groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. This would create 'a far better balance' and 'only be a good thing for all,' Pollock said. [...]"
Obviously FFII is dreaming of becoming as large and powerful as, say, EXTERNAL LINKGreenpeace is now.

It appears to me that in future the business of IP will become more depending on a deep and concise understanding of the political underpinnings of IP Law. Patent Attorneys or company-based IP Counsels not closely watching (and contributing to) the present debates might be caught by surprise later on should major features of the IP landscape ever change substantially. It is not enough to be busy with authoring and filing more and more patent applications on behalf of clients. I would not be very much surprised if in future a variety of services related to provide guidance in navigating the IP maze to companies as well as to the general public would be much more important than they are today.

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Guten Tag, Herr Horns,

die entsprechenden Beiträge können teilweise auf
http://media.ffii.org/Tacd060320/proceedings/
eingesehen werden.

Soweit ich verstanden habe, ging es Herrn Pollock darum zu zeigen, dass
es sich um keine Fragen handelt, die in ein allgemeinpolitisches Schema eingeordnet werden können:

"The first is that, at present, when it comes to intellectual property there are **no** political parties. That is there are no, or very few, discernible ideological differences between political grouping on intellectual property (and on innovation policy in general)."

Seine Äußerungen waren auch nicht institutionell für seine Interessengruppe motiviert, sondern extrapolieren lediglich die derzeitige Entwicklung der öffentlichen Meinung und die wachsende Beachtung, die diesem Feld geschenkt wird.

"In 40 years I believe we'll see organizations on the same kind of scale and with the same level of membership in the area of innovation policy."

Sie sind im Kontext der sehr breit angelegten Konferenzagenda, die von Vertretern jenseits des Atlantiks gesetzt wurde, und der diskutierten Fragestellung zu sehen.

Bezüglich ihrer Aussage, dass sich Unternehmen Gedanken machen müssen, wie sie ihre Interessen repräsentieren, stimme ich überein. Dabei sehe ich jedoch die Zunft der Patentjuristen oder die unternehmensinterne Patentrechtsabteilung wenig kompetent. Denn es handelt sich in erster Linie um wirtschaftliche Fragestellungen, nicht juristische. Wenn sich Juristen (oder vielmehr halbe Juristen) in ökonomische Debatten einmischen, ist wenig Gutes zu erwarten.
Es ist kaum ratsam, sich auf Akteure zu verlassen, die selbst wirtschaftlich an ein bestimmtes Rechtssystem gebunden sind. Wir haben leider in den letzten Jahren Fälschungen der Rechtslage beobachtet, die diese Akteure als glaubwürdige Berater in normativen Fragen disqualifizieren. Hinzu kommt, dass es auch an den analytischen Methoden für normative Fragestellungen bei dieser Berufsgruppe fehlt, möglicherweise ein Ausbildungsproblem

Die bisherige Debatte zeigt, dass diese Interessengruppen vielfach gegen die wirtschaftlichen Interessen ihres Unternehmens lobbyistisch tätig werden. Patentanwälte sind für normative Fragestellungen schlichtweg nicht kompetent. Das erkennen Sie auch an der Stellungnahme der Patentanwaltskammer zum EU_Gemeinschaftspatent, in der schamlos berufsständische Interessen verteidigt wurden. Es wäre eine Schande, wenn die EU aufgrund des Widerstandes solcher Interessengruppen das Gemeinschaftspatent wieder einmal scheitern lassen müsste.

Die Frage, ob man die Todesstrafe anwenden soll oder nicht, überlässt die Politik nicht den Henkern. Die Frage, ob Krieg zu führen ist, überlässt eine demokratische Regierung nicht den Generälen. Im Patentrecht muss dieses politische Mandat erst wieder hergestellt werden.
 
 
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