Climate Change Bill Includes IP Protections 236
moogsynth writes "Buried in section 329 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (H.R. 2410), voted in recently, are measures to oppose any global climate change treaty that weakens the IP rights in the green tech of American companies. Peter Zura's patent blog notes that 'the vote comes in anticipation of the upcoming negotiations in December as part of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. ... Previously, there was sufficient chatter in international circles on compulsory licenses, IP seizures, and the outright abolition of patents on low-carbon technology, that Congress felt it necessary to clarify the US's IP position up front.'"
I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:4, Insightful)
Why can't a bill about something be only about something?
"We will bone you hard but we will give you a reach-around..."
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:3, Insightful)
As banana republic there are certain things which must be done. This is one of them.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:5, Insightful)
When the rules apply equally to all countries, no problem. When China and India get a pass and the US would get economy destroying limits, well, then it's a major problem.
I have news for you - the US is a drop in the bucket compared to China and India.
Kyoto is broken.
Re:geo engineering (Score:3, Insightful)
If your actions don't negatively affect my health and well being in any significant way, you can do anything you want.
As soon as your behavior leaves your realm and affects mine, I'll try to be tolerant, but it gets bad I might need to defend myself.
Live and let live.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:5, Insightful)
... a Map with all countries green except for the US.
... unless you're not color-blind, and notice the handful that are gray (indicating not only that they have not ratified it, but haven't even signed it). The U.S.A. seems to be the only country that has signed but not ratified it. I won't even go into how well most of the other "large nations" are doing at actually meeting the protocol.
In other words, thanks for the inflammatory comments, now get back under your bridge.
Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:America is full of itself (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is the single largest carbon emissions producer in the world by a decent margin. China is second and India is far away in fifth place.
On a per capita basis it's even worse as the US produces five times as much co2 as China and sixteen times as much as India.
So no, it's only a drop in the bucket if your intelligence makes our previous president look like nobel prize winner.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:5, Insightful)
"Punished"? And I thought it was about "leadership" and "taking responsibility".
Re:America is full of itself (Score:1, Insightful)
The US is a drop in the bucket compared to China and India?
>Countries by C02 emissions (% of worldwide emissions)
1. United States (22.2%)
2. China (18.4%)
4. India (4.9%)
The US creates almost as much C02 emissions as both the countries you mentioned combined. Keep in mind that the we're talking about the emissions of 300 million people versus 2.5 billion people.
Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
A topical anonymous first post is a rare occurrence.
The American Congress looks out for the political class (i.e. themselves) and for whoever lines their pockets. This is very hard to change.
Congress's preferred method for doing so is to attach unrelated unpopular measures to popular multi-hundred page bills. I don't believe that this clause is such a case, but it happens often enough and there are probably other unsavory tidbits hidden within this bill.
The only way Congress will stop such a practice is if we force them to. To that end, DownsizeDC has drawn up the One Subject at a Time Act [downsizedc.org]. This bill would force Congress to bring every measure to a vote instead of burying them inside some behemoth legislation named "Rekindle The American Dream Act of 2009."
Public pressure works: see for example the 224 co-sponsors (over half the House) of The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, which you may not have even heard of yet. But the Campaign for Liberty organized a call-in campaign that has been running for a month, maybe a little longer. C4L has around 100,000 members, easily less than a thousandth of the population, and they've already got half the house behind their bill. The phone call is the most effective means of public pressure. OSTA will law by this time next year or sooner if you call your congressmen and get four friends to do the same.
OSTA is a bitter pill for Congress to swallow, yet you'll be hard pressed to find 10 average Americans against its principles. If just a hundredth of those who say "it sounds like a good idea" were to actually call and ask their congressmen to support it, the congressmen would have no choice.
Seriously. Call. Slashdot 'em.
Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with line-item veto, or any kind of system that tries to minimize the practice of "sneaking things into" a bill, is that the party in power (majority party) can simply choose to remove any part of the bill they don't like, or ADD whatever they want to any bill, confident that they will be able to pass it.
Basically, you have to be careful about any kind of legislative system that does to much to increase the power of the majority. The current system makes sure that EVERY bill is a compromise on multiple issues. Yeah, that means that most bills have all kinds of ridiculous things attached that we could probably live without, but it some of those attachments are GOOD, but would never manage to get passed if they weren't part of some larger bill with wide support.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone obviously knows absolutely nothing about the CO2 emmissions of various countries.
Fair warning: this post will make you think. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm generally against IP, but if this helps make green power technology more profitable it's really not that bad is it?
I'm generally against giving up my personal freedoms, but if getting implanted with a chip that allows me to be tracked accurately to within 3 meters will help stop the terrorists it's really not that bad, is it?
Uhm. Yeah. It is. Pork in your bill is always bad, and the IP laws are screwy enough, kthxbai.
Oh, and another thing... start substituting the word "expensive" when you read "profitable". It makes no sense to me to vote ourselves an automatic 400% increase in price for "green power" technologies, especially if we're excluding any ideas on making "green power" more affordable (read "more available") simply because they come from another country, and/or might step on copyright/patent toes in this country. (Do you really think China gives a rat's ass about violating American laws? Ask NEC about the counterfeit factories (yes, plural; 18, to be precise) they found because someone RMA'd a DVD player that NEC didn't even make. The workers thought it was a legitimate operation, they had NEC's name and logo all over the building and the uniforms, not just the products. Here, have a link [newscientist.com].)
(Off-topic rant) My take on IP: 7 years (with a one-time extension of the same duration) was reasonable; 150 years is not. Let the mouse go already, I want my public domain works.
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Please read and think before you respond or moderate. Thank you.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you guys have to get your act together (and we do too). But frankly, Kyoto at this point is a joke, even ignoring China and the US not signing. Shit sucks.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the GP is nearly on target. A treaty has the force of a statute, and can permit the President, with the Senate's approval, to do things that could not be done by the House and Senate together with the President's approval (via statute). I forget the case (sorry, out of law school, so no more free Westlaw access), but Justice Holmes held pretty clearly that treaties are not bound by the same "Congress shall nots" that limit statutes. When the Rhenquist Court started showing signs of actually giving the Commerce Clause some meaning other than "Congress can do whatever it feels like," the Greens got nervous that they wouldn't be able to get their environmental legislation approved (since Article 1 Section 8 does not give Congress the power to regulate the environment), and started advocating that treaties were the way to go, since they are not limited by Art. 1 Sect. 8 and the 10th Amendment.
As an interesting exercise, does this mean that the President, via treaties, could do things like limit freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion, since the First Amendment says "Congress shall make no law ..." without mentioning treaties? It may sound far fetched, but I'm not aware of any case that has held the contrary, which would leave us with just Justice Holmes' analysis.
Democrats are just looking out for the envionment (Score:3, Insightful)
...as long as their big corporate donors are protected.
And then somebody will tell you the Democrats really are different than the Republicans. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is increased efficiency demands increased complexity. This complexity implies that that the cost increase of a more efficient system is actually exponential, not linear, such that, going from 10% efficient to 50% efficient is pretty cheap, but it gets way more expensive after that.
Let me save you a summer. Your model utterly fails when you apply it to integrated circuits.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:1, Insightful)
Are people really this dumb? China's emissions have been rapidly increasing because of all of the manufacturing jobs being sent there, primarily from the US. If the US had to reduce emissions, that trend would increase rapidly. It's already usually cheaper to produce in China, but that would make it a LOT cheaper. And, since China generally has less pollution controls than the US, over all pollution would probably increase.
Kyoto is a stupid idea; even more so if it's not applied globally.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:2, Insightful)
what a crock of shit... you're blaming US health care costs on complexity? Take a look at :
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per-health-spending-per-person
The US spends more on health care than anyone, yet universal access to health care is pathetic. Complexity has nothing to do with it, but having middle-men (insurers etc) whose primary goal is to make billion dollar profits is the cause. In other countries, certain things (eg healthcare) are regarded as a right everyone has (akin to freedom of speech in the US - which conveniently costs nothing), yet in the US free healthcare is considered some kind of radical socialist ideal not fit for a free market economy.
This extends not only to health car but other sectors. As long as there are people making money (big money) out of the status quo, there's always going to be huge resistance to any change.
Increasing efficiency with a specific technology may be exponential (eg increasing efficiency of combustion engines, or even bicycles) but totally ignores new breakthroughs.
Random example - telescopes: a limit was reached using single mirrors. They displayed a Similar exponential increase in weight, construction costs, time and resources for a linear gain in performance. But new tech and methods and research led to developments such as the Kek telescopes (segmented mirrors) with orders of magnitude more performance, using a fraction of the previous materials/effort).
Having said that, if ever they manage this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power - if they finally manage that.... all bets are off :)
Re:America is full of itself (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but I can think of more than a few congressional cretins who would.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is something that is somewhat contested still. I have read his argument/opinion [findlaw.com] and don't agree with it. I will go on to explain why later but,
The funny thing here is that congress's power to do anything because of the commerce clause was granted by the supreme court after it already ruled the programs unconstitutional. That's somewhat important because when the Rhenquist Court started showing signs of actually giving the Commerce Clause some meaning, they were actually reverting that movement away from the unconstitutional ways. Now what funny or interesting about this is that a future court could view the subversion of the constitution as a negative and reverse this previous ruling with treaties. So at best, it's possible that given the right treaty, it could be negated within a matter of time.
Of course that would depend on whether the supreme court interpreted the constitution or thought of it as a living document and decided that "freedom of speech" as you mentioned, was only reletive to what society thought at that time.
Now, here is my objections to his ruling and it happens to be most of the controversy surrounding it that others have expressed. Article VI of the constitution says "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;". (it actually says more but this is what we need to work with.
Here is says that all treaties made, and which shall be made, under the authority of the united states. Two problems with the anything goes in treaties argument. First is that both congress and the president are sworn to uphold and protect the constitution. The president is sworn with "will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." but congress has no leniency (also, congress's oath is not mentioned in the constitution.) So it would seem that either by constitution or congressional rules, that the treaty would have to be in line with the constitution in the first place or they aren't allowed to adopt it. However, when we look at the supremacy clause, it makes a distinction between treaties already made and treaties that will(shall) be made. It says made under the authority of the united states.
To me, and quite a few others, this should mean that the president nor congress have the power to only create treaties within the limits of the constitution because the participants authority is only derived from the constitution which prohibits prohibits certain actions and only allows others. To this extent, It is where I disagree with the Holmes opinion. In it, he says "The language of the Constitution as to the supremacy of treaties being general, the question before us is narrowed to an inquiry into the ground upon which the present supposed exception is placed." he then goes on to talk about the living document in how we can't rely on what the framers meant 100 years ago and need to breath our own experiences into it. I don't buy the living document idea as not only could it be used to expand the powers of congress, it could also be used to allow indefinite detention of terror suspects, warrant-less wire taps or searches, and so on. As soon as we break away from the intentions of the founders, we are more or less making crap up as we go. The constitution allows for changes and it should be the only way it can be changed (as long as the amendment is constitutional).
Anyways, a constitutional court with a strict constitutional interpretation would most likely reverse the idea of a treaty trumping the constitution.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:5, Insightful)
No he's arguing that the only thing that matters is total global emissions, and that under the current Kyoto rules, any decrease in the US would be more than offset by the increases from larger outsourcing to China.
Maybe you're confused, but reducing carbon emissions isn't about being FAIR so that everyone gets to do just as much environmental damage as everyone else, it's about reducing carbon emissions.
Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that line item vetoes, as we know them, apply only to appropriations bills, allowing the executive to strike specific expenditures.
No one has proposed a line item veto allowing the editing out of specific words or phrases other than appropriations. ,
The kind of line item you imagine might allow the executive branch to change the meaning of a law which disallowed a specific act/event into one that specifically required that same act/event.
So, be careful what you wish for.
Re:America is full of itself (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but a bad start is better than not participating at all. At least it shows us (non-US) where you (US) stand. The annoying bit was that the treaty was heavily adapted that even America would join, then passed, and then mr new president decides it is not good for the industry (although Denmark has a thriving industry, thankyouverymuch). Really quite frustrating.
B.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:3, Insightful)
Health care: see Denmark, or even Cuba!
Efficiency: Households in Denmark use 1/2 the amount of energy as those in the US. And we're even much further north than f.ex. NY.:
Denmark: 160.98 GJ/year
US: 327.38 GJ/year
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita [wikipedia.org]
Don't tell me you _really_ need all that energy. A few cheap slabs of isolation in your houses will reduce the energy use dramatically, without much increased complexity. The Danes did it with houses dating (mostly) from the turn of the previous century, and are living in luxury with good health care. The US (or populated parts of it) must be able to achieve similar goals.
B.
Re:I'm so sick of the American Congress (Score:2, Insightful)
Either Japan was trying to quietly dump their vast T-bill holdings in Switzerland because they don't trust the U.S any more
It would be hard to blame them for that. If you look at the numbers from the point of view of a lender, there's a snowball in hell chance of the US repaying its foreign held debt. Without a deus ex machina, the interest on the existing debt will be the most expensive part of the US budget in a couple of years... from that point on, the debt will increase steadily without any need for deficit spending.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a numbers guy, and I haven't seen them, so you may be right - we might have a lower standard of living here in the US. But if we don't curb global warming, I see huge refugee camps forming, where people starve to death and start wars (and the defense dept agrees). So be sure to include those factors in your program: the # of dead parents and starving children. And come to think of it, if New Orleans refugees in Texas were any indication, the US will not be a happy place either, although they'll probably be alive and fed well.
Why include these factors? Human life doesn't have equivalent value everywhere. As I see it, even in the absence of any global warming, there's a strong likelihood for massive human die-offs. Further the burden of these problems is concentrated on the people who are most causing the problem. Namely, high population growth regions coupled with weak food and legal infrastructure.
Also, Bush is gone. We don't need to exaggerate the effects of hurricane Katrina any more.
Re:It's a token law. (Score:2, Insightful)
In other countries, certain things (eg healthcare) are regarded as a right everyone has (akin to freedom of speech in the US - which conveniently costs nothing),
There's a fundamental difference between those two examples.
Negative rights, like freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable search, are protections of things you already have. They are things which are truly free--as you point out, it costs me nothing to speak my mind--and you can exercise them at any time, even if nobody else is around.
Positive rights, like the "right to health care" or the "right to an education" are different. They are not free. In order for you to have your "right" to health care, someobdy else must provide it for you--and claiming it's a "right" implies that you can force them to provide that service to you. Also remember that someone else has to pay for that health care; does that give you the right to take that money from them by force, even if they don't want to pay?