Intellectual Property Rights: The Quiet Killer of Rio+20

ericjones12398 writes "Richard Phillips, president of the Intellectual Property Owners Association, sent a powerful message to Washington the day before the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development regarding the U.S. intellectual property community's stance on sharing IPR with developing nations. Philips argued any language included in the Rio+20 final declaration compromising the existing IP regime would discourage investment and destroy trade secrets. 'Any references to technology transfer should be clearly qualified and conditioned to include only voluntary transfer of IPR on mutually agreed terms.' The IPO has no interest in helping developing countries transition to a more sustainable economy if it means sacrificing valuable IPR. And the IPO's chilly message set the tone for what many pundits and participants considered a disappointing Rio+20 conference yielding few substantive results."

I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but...

[crazyjj]

The IPO has no interest in helping developing countries transition to a more sustainable economy if it means sacrificing valuable IPR.

In other stunning news, the rich still have it better than the poor, politicians don't have the best interests of their citizens at heart, and 2013 won't be the "Year of Linux."

Since when has anyone WITH that much valuable IP ever given it up freely? Oh sure, here and there, a token gesture. But does anyone really expect Monsanto or Intel to give up their *entire business model* and *everything that makes them money* tomorrow because some third-world country is poor? Not likely.

And to be brutally honest, how is it really fair to ask them to? If they paid for the R&D, why should someone else be entitled to it without paying a cent? Is it some first-world tech company's fault that your country is poor, that your government is too corrupt to invest in its infrastructure instead of padding El-Presidente's pockets, that your education system is a joke? Sure it would be a great charitable gesture for them to give it to you at a big discount, but that hardly gives you the right to *demand* it. You're certainly not entitled to it just because you're poor. And it probably wouldn't even do you any good, in the long term anyway, unless you deal with the underlying problems in your country that put you in poverty to begin with (El Presidente will just stuff his pockets deeper with any new money too).

Re:I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, the laws that magically make "intellectual property" "exist" are national laws.
Any poor country can create such things, or not, as it chooses.

Monsanto and Intel don't really have any choice as to whether or not their monopoly rights exist in a given country.
That's up to the country.

Wasn't anybody else expecting Rio+20 to fail?

[marcosdumay]

Reading the MSM I got the impression I'm was the only person in the world expecting the conference to fail. I always assumed that was because MSM is stupid, but came-on, here too?

Why would anybody expect any agreement? Wasn't Kyoto enough to show that nobody wants to commit, and everybody wants everybody else to? There is no more easy stuff to do for the environment (like banning CFCs), nobody will reach an agreement on anything hard. Claiming the failure is due to any cause, but lack of commitment is a lie.

Re:I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but..

[bill_mcgonigle]

Any poor country can create such things, or not, as it chooses.

But just think - if a small third-world company started manufacturing, say drugs that the local people who live on a dollar a day need, earning perhaps a trivial profit, it would be the end of the 1st world countries!

As if the idea weren't already impeding the progress [stephankinsella.com] of the arts and useful sciences. Because a company like Apple would never use such a system to try to band the competition from the marketplace or anything...

I seriously doubt...

[Mr. Firewall]

...that the the IPO’s "chilly message" set the tone for anything at Rio +20. It was doomed from the start and everyone involved knew it.

One look at the drafts of the ridiculous "The Future We Want" document is sufficient to explain the failure of Rio +20. No "chilly message" from IP owners is required.

Re:I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but..

[Internetuser1248]

Except that when 3rd world countries don't do what they are told, they are hit with economic sanctions, their leaders are demonised in the world media, and in extreme cases they are invaded, bombed or both. The poverty in the third world is manufactured, not in the sense that it wasn't there before and someone created it, but in the sense that it would have naturally faded away by now if powerful rich nations weren't working their asses of to perpetuate it. Cuba is a nice example, they got the sanctions for having strong welfare, education and medical policies designed to bring them up to first world status. First they got crippling sanctions, and although these succeeded in keeping them poor, it didn't make them give up their system. Then they got the invasions.

Re:I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but..

[h4rr4r]

The thing is when we were a basically a 3rd world nation, right after we became a nation we ripped off everyone's IP.

Without that step you can never really get to a point at which you can create a workable economy.

Re:I know this won't be a popular sentiment, but..

[Mprx]

You make a Stradivarius the same way you make any other high quality violin, as shown by skilled musicians failing to distinguish them from modern replicas in blind tests.