The nonsense of US protectionists' patent stealing accusations
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15 April 2005 by arebenti -- American media is often zealotish when it comes to free trade issues. This includes advocates and opponents of protectionism. American Daily published an article of Steve Farell The Dangerous Nonsense Of Protectionism? which advocated US protectionism, accused organisations such as the WTO of managed trade rather than free trade and started an unfounded assault on China based on a limited understanding of patent law.
The article criticizes international agreements in general
- The Constitution, by the way, gives us this right. According to that document, the US Congress, not some unelected international body, regulates our commerce with foreign nations.
Furthermore free trade is depicted as a way to harm the US economy and improve China's military powers.
- Do we really think China's stated ambition to become the number one military power on the planet, the stated goal of a communist regime, is all bluff, and that we are not threatened by the economic and military growth we fuel in the name of "free trade" with them?
China - the "very definition of a mob"?
- Don't you and I decide who we do business with? Doesn't common sense say, "don't do business with the mob," and how about, "don't buy stolen goods?" As far as I can tell, China and countries like her are the very definition of a mob, among the worst the world has ever known, patent stealers too. And so why can't the national law, like the local law, ban or put reasonable restraints upon doing business with such shady partners?
Source: http://www.americandaily.com/article/7468
Comment: Stolen Patents?
There is no such thing like "stealing a patent", patents are national monopoly grants (1) for an inventor.
Patent law adheres to the territorial principle of law. Patents granted by the USPTO are only valid in the US single market. US companies which want to enjoy the same patent protection abroad have to apply for a patent in those states e.g. in Germany. If it is also granted in Germany under German legal conditions the German patent will be valid for the German market only. National Patent Offices examine patent applications regardless the origin of the inventor. International Institutions and treaties care that these standards are met.
Conditions for patentability are an issue for the national lawmaker, however "some unelected international body, regulates ... commerce with foreign nations" and the US dictated the !TRIPs agreement in the Uruguay GATT round which sets certain international standards for patentability (e.g. !TRIPs 27).
General accusations against citizens and manufacturers of a nation at large are usually unfounded. Chinese companies are free to use and sell US patented technology where the US inventors did not apply for a patent. However, when those Chinese produce or sell their product to states where a patent was granted the patent holder can reach an injunction because of patent breach. The United States do not need protectionism to prosecute national patent breaches via imported products from China.
No one can blame the Chinese for denying patent protection for "all made under the sun by men". The United States did not have to ask their international partners when their patent system widened the scope of possible patent protection. The territorial principle. Now those states which did not follow the US move are by no means "stealers" or "shady partners".
(1) Attorneys often put emphasis on the fact that a patent grants you no positive right to use your invention, it enables you to exclude competitors. From the viewpoint of economics the effects on the market are the very same: a monopoly grant.
