On Wed, Jun 02, 2004 at 07:47:53PM +0800, Paolo Alexis D. Falcone wrote: > Btw, there are quite a lot to watch out on the legal side of IPR, given that > there's already an enabling law for patent cooperation - which extends to > other countries that ratified the treaty (as the Philippines is already a > member of the WIPO since 2001).
Be diligent. The US likes to use its muscle, which is considerable, to bully other countries into adopting our screwed up IP legal infrastructure. Australia just capitulated last year and got some DMCA-style legislation in place. Watch for it and fight it if you see anything like this happening. Seriously. It's easier to kill this crap up front than to change it after it is law. With Australia, the bait was some trade agreement. "Ah, yes, we can have a nice trade agreement, if you'll only bring your IP laws, ahem, up to par with ours in the US." That can be a tough line for someone to fight, especially for free or more open trade with the US. The sad truth is that we're so dependent on cheap goodies from other countries that we don't have a real bargaining position with most countries; it just looks that way. Anyway, my 1 peso/two cents (that's about right). Michael -- Michael Darrin Chaney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.michaelchaney.com/ -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
