Re: You have rights.. Software Patents areIllegal

> Thanks for clearing up this proceedural point. So in effect the courts of
> the WTO can decide whether something is compliant or not and then system of
> sanctions can be imposed by other members acting individually.

Pretty much. The WTO treaties are basically agreements without teeth. All the 
WTO can do is "approve reciprocal sanctions". The WTO trade treaties are just 
sets of rules. If you're powerful enough politically then you can bend the 
rules significantly without getting harmed.

>  I think that in the case of software patenting it may be the voices of
> India and China who sway this debate. If they have a flourishing software
> publishing market they are unlikely to agree to the US/Japanese companies
> monopolising the concepts within software.

Yes and no. It all depends on the balance of power and the relative 
interests. We can see as much by the recent US-Australia Free Trade 
Agreement, which included provisions requiring Australia (which has already 
implemented the WIPO CT in national law) to implement much stronger 
anti-circumvention measures than it has already (specifically similar to the 
DMCA ones) in return for access to American markets in general.

All this is of course very hypocritical of the US which was the worst 
industrialised violator of other countries' IP until the late twnetieth 
century when it finally became a net exporter of IP (primarily movies, music 
and books) when it suddenly had an epiphany and started pressurising everyone 
else to stronger and stronger IP protection.

Personally I think this is stifling innovation in the industrialised world 
and we're heading for a regressive age because of it, but then I'm a 
"dedicated follower of Lessig" as it were :-).


-- 
*E-mail*a.a.adams-SsMor1Oo1JZaa/[email protected]********  Dr Andrew A Adams
**snail*23 Ivydene Road************  School of Systems Engineering
***mail*Reading RG30 1HT, UK*******  The University of Reading
****Tel*+44-118-956-0607***********  Reading, United Kingdom