10 ms·

Why should anyone respect China's patents when they flout patent law that puts them at a disadvantage?

by x3n0ph3n3 7y ago

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Because we aspire to the rule of law, even if they don't.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  While I completely agree that the US should aspire to hold the law in high regard, there is plenty of cases where it's disregarded against bad actors. Consider the sanctions against countries (Iran comes to mind at the moment) where that country is not allowed to pursue perfectly legal actions because of 3rd party pressure. Sanctions against China won't work though because their international political clout. But since much of the rare earth patents are probably needed for making defense systems, I think it can easily be set aside as a "national security", "self defense", etc... I am sure a savvy lawyer could come up with the argument.
  - mullingitover 7y ago
    > But since much of the rare earth patents are probably needed for making defense systems, I think it can easily be set aside as a "national security", "self defense", etc... I am sure a savvy lawyer could come up with the argument. We can desire to violate the treaties to our hearts' content, but if we don't actually have the elements the patents are referencing we won't be able to violate any of the patents.
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      Rare earth metals are _not_ uncommon, we have tons of them in the US, just not the processing capacity. Which is already starting to change.
      - mullingitover 7y ago
        Indeed, but even for example with a wartime suspension of their patents, we would be cut off from supplies immediately and it could potentially take years for our domestic pipeline to start delivering. Without the wartime excuse I don't foresee it getting any better for the speed at which we can start mining (pretty sure it would take multiple acts of congress to allow for the environmental regs to be ignored), and if we start violating China's rare earth patents willy-nilly I don't picture them helping us with that by continuing to sell the raw materials to us.
        RobertRoberts 7y ago
        Sure, but until there's war, patents are just a business issue, not a catastrophic one. So there really is no issues here accept who makes more money.
- gpm 7y ago
  Changing the law is allowed within the rule of law, which is what I read gp as suggesting, so I'm not sure this is an answer.
- coldtea 7y ago
  "Because we now need the rule of this particular law, even if they don't. Of course, when we didn't need it, we broke it like crazy ourselves, like we were tariff crazy back in the day (but now we are against them), and like all our other international transgressions (supporting dictators, toppling governments, secret sites, etc), or lack of "aspiring" for the rule of law in other matters, including not signing child labor treaties or environmental ones everybody else in the west signed" -- that would be more like it.
mullingitover 7y ago
The US did the same thing until it didn't. Should everyone ignore US patents because we flouted everyone else's for a century?
- product50 7y ago
  Whose patents did US flout?
  - shagie 7y ago
    https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/07/05/americas-industrial-revolution-based-trade-secret-theft/id=85377/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/07/05/americas-industrial-re... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-industrial-espionage-started-americas-cotton-revolution-180967608/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-industrial-esp... https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ (this one is specifically in context of China) This was before patents were well codified - instead it was trade secrets and guilds. It was still intellectual property theft.
    - learc83 7y ago
      Slater was a British citizen who was prohibited by law from leaving Britain. He left under an assumed identity and set up shop in the US. This is not an example of the US engaging in industrial espionage or IP theft itself. We don't even know if Slater himself committed what we would call IP theft. From your first article: >Looking back, we can’t really conclude whether Samuel Slater’s actions would have qualified as trade secret misappropriation under modern laws. We don’t know, for example, how much of his work that first year resulted from his skills and general knowledge about the physics of spinning cotton and about pre-existing mechanical techniques. All of that was his to use freely. And we don’t know to what extent the success of his mills was due to improvements that he came up with on his own. There was a deputy treasury secretary who posted bounties looking for British cotton mill operators, but that seemingly never came of anything. That is better evidence of direct wrongdoing by the US. However, the US hadn't signed any treaties honoring British IP law yet and most European powers were doing the exact same thing at the time. >While the first U.S. patent act, in 1790, specified that "any person or persons" could file a patent, it was changed in 1793 to make clear that only U.S. citizens could claim U.S. patent protection. >China’s modern trade and patent regimes are similarly tilted against outsiders. The US in 1793 hadn't signed a treaty preventing them from limiting patent protection to US citizens. China has signed treaties promising to treat patent applications by petitioners from signatory states the same as domestic petitioners, and as your article points out they do not.
omegaworks 7y ago
This is precisely what negotiation in good faith is meant to resolve.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Well for one not doing so is a fast way to essentially instalose the argument by undermine the legitimacy of their complaints - it makes the whole complaint look like a pretext.

Why should anyone respect China's patents when they flout patent law that puts them at a disadvantage?

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

Because we aspire to the rule of law, even if they don't.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
While I completely agree that the US should aspire to hold the law in high regard, there is plenty of cases where it's disregarded against bad actors. Consider the sanctions against countries (Iran comes to mind at the moment) where that country is not allowed to pursue perfectly legal actions because of 3rd party pressure. Sanctions against China won't work though because their international political clout. But since much of the rare earth patents are probably needed for making defense systems, I think it can easily be set aside as a "national security", "self defense", etc... I am sure a savvy lawyer could come up with the argument.
- mullingitover 7y ago
  > But since much of the rare earth patents are probably needed for making defense systems, I think it can easily be set aside as a "national security", "self defense", etc... I am sure a savvy lawyer could come up with the argument. We can desire to violate the treaties to our hearts' content, but if we don't actually have the elements the patents are referencing we won't be able to violate any of the patents.
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    Rare earth metals are _not_ uncommon, we have tons of them in the US, just not the processing capacity. Which is already starting to change.
    - mullingitover 7y ago
      Indeed, but even for example with a wartime suspension of their patents, we would be cut off from supplies immediately and it could potentially take years for our domestic pipeline to start delivering. Without the wartime excuse I don't foresee it getting any better for the speed at which we can start mining (pretty sure it would take multiple acts of congress to allow for the environmental regs to be ignored), and if we start violating China's rare earth patents willy-nilly I don't picture them helping us with that by continuing to sell the raw materials to us.
      - RobertRoberts 7y ago
        Sure, but until there's war, patents are just a business issue, not a catastrophic one. So there really is no issues here accept who makes more money.
gpm 7y ago
Changing the law is allowed within the rule of law, which is what I read gp as suggesting, so I'm not sure this is an answer.
coldtea 7y ago
"Because we now need the rule of this particular law, even if they don't. Of course, when we didn't need it, we broke it like crazy ourselves, like we were tariff crazy back in the day (but now we are against them), and like all our other international transgressions (supporting dictators, toppling governments, secret sites, etc), or lack of "aspiring" for the rule of law in other matters, including not signing child labor treaties or environmental ones everybody else in the west signed" -- that would be more like it.

mullingitover 7y ago

The US did the same thing until it didn't. Should everyone ignore US patents because we flouted everyone else's for a century?

product50 7y ago
Whose patents did US flout?
- shagie 7y ago
  https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/07/05/americas-industrial-revolution-based-trade-secret-theft/id=85377/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2017/07/05/americas-industrial-re... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-industrial-espionage-started-americas-cotton-revolution-180967608/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-industrial-esp... https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ (this one is specifically in context of China) This was before patents were well codified - instead it was trade secrets and guilds. It was still intellectual property theft.
  - learc83 7y ago
    Slater was a British citizen who was prohibited by law from leaving Britain. He left under an assumed identity and set up shop in the US. This is not an example of the US engaging in industrial espionage or IP theft itself. We don't even know if Slater himself committed what we would call IP theft. From your first article: >Looking back, we can’t really conclude whether Samuel Slater’s actions would have qualified as trade secret misappropriation under modern laws. We don’t know, for example, how much of his work that first year resulted from his skills and general knowledge about the physics of spinning cotton and about pre-existing mechanical techniques. All of that was his to use freely. And we don’t know to what extent the success of his mills was due to improvements that he came up with on his own. There was a deputy treasury secretary who posted bounties looking for British cotton mill operators, but that seemingly never came of anything. That is better evidence of direct wrongdoing by the US. However, the US hadn't signed any treaties honoring British IP law yet and most European powers were doing the exact same thing at the time. >While the first U.S. patent act, in 1790, specified that "any person or persons" could file a patent, it was changed in 1793 to make clear that only U.S. citizens could claim U.S. patent protection. >China’s modern trade and patent regimes are similarly tilted against outsiders. The US in 1793 hadn't signed a treaty preventing them from limiting patent protection to US citizens. China has signed treaties promising to treat patent applications by petitioners from signatory states the same as domestic petitioners, and as your article points out they do not.

omegaworks 7y ago

This is precisely what negotiation in good faith is meant to resolve.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Well for one not doing so is a fast way to essentially instalose the argument by undermine the legitimacy of their complaints - it makes the whole complaint look like a pretext.