My friend Brian is an inventor. Not one of those crackpots you see on late night cable tee vee, but an industrial designer. He and his colleagues design tools for a particular industry. But Brian has an engaging mind and he saw an opportunity to design a better version of a product used every day. So he drew a blueprint, made a prototype and showed it to his partners. They all agreed it was a great design, worthy of a patent and could sell tens of thousands of units. Then they agreed with Brian that the project should be put on the shelf and never spoken of again, which is what happened, except that I’m speaking about it now.
Why this apparently nonsensical approach? The idea, Brian explained, was just too good. Brian could apply for a patent, he and his partners could borrow capital and begin production, but as soon as Brian’s idea hit the market, a corporation with deep pockets would copy the design and sell the same product at a cheaper price. Sure, Brian could sue to enforce his patent, but because the corporation has so much money, they would just tie up the suit for years, until Brian and his partners had been bled dry and driven out of business. As I said, they’re industrial designers, they see it happen all the time.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Patents are supposed to protect everyone equally, specifically protecting the small operator from the deep-pocket bullies. But the American judicial system favors might over right, might expressed as money and this defect spreads like a sour stench until it permeates everything around it, including patents.
And there are many ways to skin a patented cat. You’re probably familiar with reverse engineering in computers, the process by which a bunch of little start-ups pulled apart IBM PCs and reassembled them with just enough difference to avoid patent trouble. No one gets too upset when a bunch of brats do it to Big Blue, but feature this: an American company called Rice-Tec went to south Asia, took some basmati rice, which has been slowly developed in India and Pakistan for thousands of years, pulled a little hocus pocus with the genes and patented the result.
For those of you who know not what you eat, a word about basmati rice: This ain’t Uncle Ben’s. Basmati is an aromatic, long-grained rice with white, brown or black grains. It cooks up like a dream and tastes wonderful. It’s a staple on the subcontinent and the source of badly needed export dollars for small farmers.
In one corner, we have an American corporation with untold millions at its disposal, ready to flood the market with their version of basmati. In the other corner is an Indian farmer with 3,000 years of tradition, 30 acres and an ox. Who do you think is going to win?
The list of plunder covers the globe, just like – hmmmm – globalization. Sequana Therapeutics has filed patents on the cells and genes of indigenous tribes in New Guinea, W.R Grace – they were the bad guys in the movie “A Civil Action” – Grace got caught trying to steal traditional medical techniques from India, Myriad Pharmaceuticals owns patents on human genes damaged by breast cancer. Everything is a commodity; get it while you can.
This is why people were marching in the streets of Seattle, and in Montreal in January and in Boston last weekend and will again in Washington, DC in two weeks.
And if you’re sitting in front of a computer somewhere in the first world, thinking no corporation will ever wind up owning the rights to your genes – guess what?
Patent Nonsense
My friend Brian is an inventor. Not one of those crackpots you see on late night cable tee vee, but an industrial designer. He and his colleagues design tools for a particular industry. But Brian has an engaging mind and he saw an opportunity to design a better version of a product used every day. So he drew a blueprint, made a prototype and showed it to his partners. They all agreed it was a great design, worthy of a patent and could sell tens of thousands of units. Then they agreed with Brian that the project should be put on the shelf and never spoken of again, which is what happened, except that I’m speaking about it now.
Why this apparently nonsensical approach? The idea, Brian explained, was just too good. Brian could apply for a patent, he and his partners could borrow capital and begin production, but as soon as Brian’s idea hit the market, a corporation with deep pockets would copy the design and sell the same product at a cheaper price. Sure, Brian could sue to enforce his patent, but because the corporation has so much money, they would just tie up the suit for years, until Brian and his partners had been bled dry and driven out of business. As I said, they’re industrial designers, they see it happen all the time.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. Patents are supposed to protect everyone equally, specifically protecting the small operator from the deep-pocket bullies. But the American judicial system favors might over right, might expressed as money and this defect spreads like a sour stench until it permeates everything around it, including patents.
And there are many ways to skin a patented cat. You’re probably familiar with reverse engineering in computers, the process by which a bunch of little start-ups pulled apart IBM PCs and reassembled them with just enough difference to avoid patent trouble. No one gets too upset when a bunch of brats do it to Big Blue, but feature this: an American company called Rice-Tec went to south Asia, took some basmati rice, which has been slowly developed in India and Pakistan for thousands of years, pulled a little hocus pocus with the genes and patented the result.
For those of you who know not what you eat, a word about basmati rice: This ain’t Uncle Ben’s. Basmati is an aromatic, long-grained rice with white, brown or black grains. It cooks up like a dream and tastes wonderful. It’s a staple on the subcontinent and the source of badly needed export dollars for small farmers.
In one corner, we have an American corporation with untold millions at its disposal, ready to flood the market with their version of basmati. In the other corner is an Indian farmer with 3,000 years of tradition, 30 acres and an ox. Who do you think is going to win?
The list of plunder covers the globe, just like – hmmmm – globalization. Sequana Therapeutics has filed patents on the cells and genes of indigenous tribes in New Guinea, W.R Grace – they were the bad guys in the movie “A Civil Action” – Grace got caught trying to steal traditional medical techniques from India, Myriad Pharmaceuticals owns patents on human genes damaged by breast cancer. Everything is a commodity; get it while you can.
This is why people were marching in the streets of Seattle, and in Montreal in January and in Boston last weekend and will again in Washington, DC in two weeks.
And if you’re sitting in front of a computer somewhere in the first world, thinking no corporation will ever wind up owning the rights to your genes – guess what?
You’re wrong.