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This alone is a strike against humanity: Now local patent laws that are widely criticized are even protected by international contracts (and thus have to be imp

This alone is a strike against humanity: Now local patent laws that are widely criticized are even protected by international contracts (and thus have to be implemented by all signers -- and can not be changed, even the US can not change it's laws or regulations, when the top courts want to change patent ability regulations, they can't.). Is this about "free trade" or about profit-maximizing and guaranteeing for some big corporations?

cryoshon 11y ago
The latter, of course. Novartis and other pharma giants are heavily behind the TPP because it would send their profits through the roof relative to currently.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  That is, IMHO, just the opposite of a "free market". "Chained market" fits it better.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Also, the drug market and ISP market in the US are explicitly exempt from the free market and ISDS policy – meaning, in the US, you can still have monopolies, but in the rest of the world, protectionism becomes impossible. Very dangerous, and sounds more like "Empire – Colonies" than "Equal partners in trade"
    - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
      That is exactly the impression I got from the TTIP negotiations. The EU "partners" where supposed to sacrifice any of their positions, but the US (and US-corporation-) side always insisted in theirs. Unbelievable, that the EU does really accept all this! Only explanation: Those politicians are already bought.
      - kuschku 11y ago
        To quote Obama: > The TPP means that America will write the rules of the road in the 21st century. http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0SU0SR20151105 http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0S... It very much sounds like they’re treating the rest of the world as colonies.
        PythonicAlpha 11y ago
        Only the rest of the worlds did not recognize it! What happens to colonies can be seen in the plenty of former colonies that still struggle to get out of poverty.
        deciplex 11y ago
        What confuses the hell out of me regarding the TPP - and maybe it's just because I'm in the HN/Reddit echo chamber on this - but if the TPP is so damn important to reigning in China in the 21st century or whatever, then why did they load it up with a bunch of unrelated antagonizing bullshit? It doesn't seem to me that the intellectual property provisions of the agreement are all that important to the overall stated goals of the TPP. Yet they are so fucking regressive and antagonistic that there is some chance (I guess? Again, echo chamber...) that they will sabotage the rest of the agreement. After SOPA, etc., if it were me and I wanted to be sure that the TPP passed in enough Pacific Rim countries to make it effective, I would keep anything remotely like SOPA as far away from my precious treaty as I possibly could. Instead, the IP portions of the agreement are basically the language that was in SOPA all over again, which pissed a whole lot of people off last time. It's really hard to take seriously the claim that the TPP is so important, when the people drafting it are including language that is pretty much guaranteed to stoke vigorous opposition, for reasons that are mostly orthogonal to their goals.
        PythonicAlpha 11y ago
        To me it seams that they just don't care. Either they know, that the other countries will follow anyway (because the politicians are (select one or multiple): incompetent, bought, blackmailed, Pro-US, incompetent, ignoring their own countries interests) -- or the things told about the importance of the treaties are not true, but it is just a vehicle to transport the antagonizing bullshit, because some big corporations want this to be installed. In the EU (TTIP), my impression is, that at least at the high levels of politicians, the list above just must be applied. Many leading politicians are just hitting so hard to get this installed, that it seems they are mad, when I see what negatives they are ready to swallow. They let the US dictate the treaty and just don't seem to recognize, how the EU is hornswoggled.
rhino369 11y ago
>Is this about "free trade" or about profit-maximizing and guaranteeing for some big corporations? If the West is moving towards an information economy and is going to let the developing world take over manufacturing, the West wants to protect the information economy. The idea is we want to sell information for goods/services.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  Of course, some types of protection for own inventions is necessary ... but what here shall be protected, are the building blocks of life! This is not about protecting own inventions, but about land-grabbing things that we did not invent, but nature! The same thing, corporations try again and again. For example, once they copied cures of traditional Indian medicine, patented them in the USA and tried to forbid the free usage. When this goes on this way, we all will soon have to pay a life-tax for having some type of DNA or bacteria in our bodies. Already, many cures are not invented, because to many patents on life building blocks make the creation to financially risky.
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    Can you support your claim that indian medicine cures were patented in the US?
    - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
      Just use Google and you can yourself easily find enough references. Maybe I should add, that also European corporations did such things in Europe.
    - hellbanner 11y ago
      Can't EDIT, so here is this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/22/india-protect-traditional-medicines http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/22/india-protect-t... "In the first step by a developing country to stop multinational companies patenting traditional remedies from local plants and animals, the Indian government has effectively licensed 200,000 local treatments as "public property" free for anyone to use but no one to sell as a "brand"."

cryoshon 11y ago

The latter, of course. Novartis and other pharma giants are heavily behind the TPP because it would send their profits through the roof relative to currently.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
That is, IMHO, just the opposite of a "free market". "Chained market" fits it better.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Also, the drug market and ISP market in the US are explicitly exempt from the free market and ISDS policy – meaning, in the US, you can still have monopolies, but in the rest of the world, protectionism becomes impossible. Very dangerous, and sounds more like "Empire – Colonies" than "Equal partners in trade"
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    That is exactly the impression I got from the TTIP negotiations. The EU "partners" where supposed to sacrifice any of their positions, but the US (and US-corporation-) side always insisted in theirs. Unbelievable, that the EU does really accept all this! Only explanation: Those politicians are already bought.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      To quote Obama: > The TPP means that America will write the rules of the road in the 21st century. http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0SU0SR20151105 http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/11/05/trade-tpp-idINKCN0S... It very much sounds like they’re treating the rest of the world as colonies.
      - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
        Only the rest of the worlds did not recognize it! What happens to colonies can be seen in the plenty of former colonies that still struggle to get out of poverty.
      - deciplex 11y ago
        What confuses the hell out of me regarding the TPP - and maybe it's just because I'm in the HN/Reddit echo chamber on this - but if the TPP is so damn important to reigning in China in the 21st century or whatever, then why did they load it up with a bunch of unrelated antagonizing bullshit? It doesn't seem to me that the intellectual property provisions of the agreement are all that important to the overall stated goals of the TPP. Yet they are so fucking regressive and antagonistic that there is some chance (I guess? Again, echo chamber...) that they will sabotage the rest of the agreement. After SOPA, etc., if it were me and I wanted to be sure that the TPP passed in enough Pacific Rim countries to make it effective, I would keep anything remotely like SOPA as far away from my precious treaty as I possibly could. Instead, the IP portions of the agreement are basically the language that was in SOPA all over again, which pissed a whole lot of people off last time. It's really hard to take seriously the claim that the TPP is so important, when the people drafting it are including language that is pretty much guaranteed to stoke vigorous opposition, for reasons that are mostly orthogonal to their goals.
        PythonicAlpha 11y ago
        To me it seams that they just don't care. Either they know, that the other countries will follow anyway (because the politicians are (select one or multiple): incompetent, bought, blackmailed, Pro-US, incompetent, ignoring their own countries interests) -- or the things told about the importance of the treaties are not true, but it is just a vehicle to transport the antagonizing bullshit, because some big corporations want this to be installed. In the EU (TTIP), my impression is, that at least at the high levels of politicians, the list above just must be applied. Many leading politicians are just hitting so hard to get this installed, that it seems they are mad, when I see what negatives they are ready to swallow. They let the US dictate the treaty and just don't seem to recognize, how the EU is hornswoggled.

rhino369 11y ago

>Is this about "free trade" or about profit-maximizing and guaranteeing for some big corporations? If the West is moving towards an information economy and is going to let the developing world take over manufacturing, the West wants to protect the information economy. The idea is we want to sell information for goods/services.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
Of course, some types of protection for own inventions is necessary ... but what here shall be protected, are the building blocks of life! This is not about protecting own inventions, but about land-grabbing things that we did not invent, but nature! The same thing, corporations try again and again. For example, once they copied cures of traditional Indian medicine, patented them in the USA and tried to forbid the free usage. When this goes on this way, we all will soon have to pay a life-tax for having some type of DNA or bacteria in our bodies. Already, many cures are not invented, because to many patents on life building blocks make the creation to financially risky.
- hellbanner 11y ago
  Can you support your claim that indian medicine cures were patented in the US?
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    Just use Google and you can yourself easily find enough references. Maybe I should add, that also European corporations did such things in Europe.
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    Can't EDIT, so here is this: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/22/india-protect-traditional-medicines http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/feb/22/india-protect-t... "In the first step by a developing country to stop multinational companies patenting traditional remedies from local plants and animals, the Indian government has effectively licensed 200,000 local treatments as "public property" free for anyone to use but no one to sell as a "brand"."