When I read the text which I’ll comment on this post, I remembered a joke I heard a few weeks ago:

Q. You know how many engineers of the company XXX are needed to replace a light bulb?

R. None… The company XXX transforms “darkness” on a standard!

I was alerted by a friend that will occur an important international discussion on patents (excuses about that “bad” word) and it will be discussed a document regarding the International Patent System, available here. This document was drafted by the World Itellectual Property Organization (which is based on Geneva… complicated city, hmm?).

I have not read the whole document but I saw there a couple of things that really made me scared.

The first of them is located at the executive summary, when they made a summary about the importance of patents to economic environment and international innovation. They should only have taken that text from a “Fairy Tales” book.

I’m really annoyed when I hear someone arguing that “patents encourage innovation”… is it true?

A good practical example: Imagine that you are an entrepreneur in the software industry and wants to develop an ERP system for small businesses, which takes control of the whole production management. You know what is the chance that you can develop such a whole system without infringing any patent: 0%…

In summary, you study and develops a system by yourself, and after that everything is ready, it may appear that a “coated person” saying that he has patented an algorithm, concept or idea of architecture that you used and you need to pay a fee to him (royalties of his invention). The worst thing is that in many cases, he only has the patent and never implemented the patent subject in practice.

Is this really encourages innovation?

I understand that the problem is not the patent, but the evil use made of it and let’s be honest: Patents today serve to prevent someone joining the market that you are. I know stories of decades of scientific studies that had to be abandoned when one of the groups that studying abroad (they were around four groups around the world researching the same subject) reached the final outcome with a few DAYS ahead of the others… anyone doubts that if they had shared their knowledge the study would be ready in half the time, with less resources spent and with a result that should benefits more people (or even companies) ?

The other point of the document that left me really scared, mainly because it is located on a par of the document that defines the terms used in the whole document, is the definition given to the term “open standards” (item IV - page 35 of the document). They virtually copied the definition of the European Union (which I believe is the most complete one) and changed a basic assumption (”no royalties”), for a definition based on RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms with or without the collection of royalties. That totally distorts the definition of open standards and enables that some “aberrations” in the market can now be self-entitled “AN OPEN STANDARD” (ie making “darkness” a standard).

Moreover, they only forget, as always, to explain what exactly “reasonable” means (no reasonable, hmm ?).

They are like these manoeuvres which lead me to believe that the trade disputes are actually leaving the market place and reaching international standardization bodies. Most of these entities is currently serving as a shelter to those who resist to accept that the world has changed and therefore need to revive the concepts that was already defeated in today’s world through standards, treaties and recommendations.

As always, the lack of mechanisms for popular participation in these committees will give them the advantage they need to turn, once again, “darkness” in a standard (or to transform things they don’t understand, on things they really understand using the “funiest” way available).

I wrote this post to alert everyone about what is happening there, and if anyone of you know any person who participates in this negotiation on patents, please alert them to ask, for at least the accuracy of the text defining open standards.