[WSIS CS-Plenary] Thinking about "intellectual property" is a mistake

[Enrique A. Chaparro]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 10:31:28 -0400
"Milton Mueller" <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:

MM> What I see here are a series of assertions, and I cannot
MM> understand the logic linking them.
MM> 
MM> First, it is common in law to link copyright, patents and trademark
MM> as families of related areas of law. Many practitioners span
MM> all three fields, many legal conferences cover all three. To say that
MM> patent issues are "completely different" from copyright is just 
MM> wrong - both involve a commitment to make valuable information
MM> public in exchange for limited terms of protection. Copyright
MM> protects only the particular expression, patent protects the idea.
MM> That is an important difference with significant governance
MM> consequences, but it is a variation on a theme, not a "complete 
MM> difference." Same goes for trademark.
MM> 
MM> But what I cannot understand at all is the leap to conclude
MM> that since these things are different they should be "kept off
MM> the agenda" of the WGIG. There is more internet governance
MM> activity around issues of intellectual property (especially 
MM> copyright and trademark) than perhaps any other issue area.
MM> KaZaa, circumvention of copy protection, TRIPS, the WIPO 
MM> Internet broadcasting activity, ICANN and domain name-trademark 
MM> conflicts, all these are critical and live areas of internet
MM> governance.
MM> 
MM> Perhaps this person did not express his ideas well. I cannot
MM> make any sense of his assertions.

Milton,
Aun cuando no estamos de acuerdo en la existencia de una categoria
uniforme `IPR', discutiremos la cuestion en otro lado. Por cierto que,
a diferencia de su posicion, creo que las cuestiones relativas a
patentes, derechos de autor, copyrights y marcas no pertenecen al
ambito del `gobierno de la Internet'. La Internet requiere `gobierno'
solamente para un numero muy limitado de aspectos (algunos de ellos
ya adecuadamente resueltos) para garantizar su funcionamiento, y
ninguno de ellos tiene relacion con lo que Ud. llama IPR.

Como he dicho, discutiremos por separado la cuestion de fondo. Pero
me premito señalarle un error conceptual serio en sus afirmaciones:
`patent protects the idea'. Eso no es cierto, y lleva a confusiones.
Las patentes protegen los metodos y procesos involucrados en la
implementacion de algunas ideas, a condicion de que sean novedosos,
no obvios, y suceptibles de aplicacion industrial. Ninguna legislacion
que conozca protege las ideas como tales; aun con el criterio amplisimo
que se usa en los Estados Unidos, las ideas como tales no son
patentables (ver U.S.C.35, 101).

Saludos,

Enrique


-- 
``Izena duen guzia omen da.''
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