Forschungen best�tigen einen alten Verdacht: das Patentsystem wurde den L�ndern, die aus guten wirtschaftlichen Gr�nden nicht mitmachten, ohne g�ltige �konomische Argumente aufgedr�ckt. Es konnte nicht toleriert werden, dass irgendwelche L�nder zeigen, dass es ohne Patente besser geht, und das Patentwesen hat einen Aspekt, der es bislang siegreich machte: es erzeugt eine gut organisierte und finanzierte Lobby mit gesetzgeberischer Macht.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 15:17:50 +0100 (CET) From: PILCH Hartmut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Guardian 2002-03-12: Patent Nonsense http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,7369,665969,00.html Patent nonsense Companies now demanding intellectual property rights were built up without them George Monbiot Tuesday March 12, 2002 The Guardian ... In Industrialisation without National Patents, published in 1971, the economic historian Eric Schiff tells the story of the emergence of some of Europe's biggest corporations. They came into being in Switzerland and the Netherlands during the period (1850-1907 in Switzerland; 1869-1912 in the Netherlands) in which neither country recognised patents. Some of them appear to owe their very existence to this exemption. [...] Switzerland and the Netherlands eventually adopted patent laws in response to threats from other industrialised nations. This, Schiff argues, was a political decision, not an economic one. It is, he notes, "difficult to avoid the impression" that the absence of patent laws "furthered, rather than hampered development". The two countries relied for their growth not upon exclusive rights but upon high educational standards and technical ability. These examples do not necessarily suggest that the abandonment of patent protection is an essential precondition for development. But they do indicate that it can, in the right circumstances, be an effective tool. This tool has been denied to poor nations, partly as a result of energetic lobbying by the very companies which once made use of it. [...] www.monbiot.com -- Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance tel. +49-89-12789608 Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation http://swpat.ffii.org/ 100,000 signatures against software patents http://www.noepatents.org/
