[PASSED] International Patent Agreement

[Separatist Peoples]

Their processes, sure. Not the products. Pharmaceuticals are patented products, not processes. I followed it up with a cotton gin example that demonstrates that PPU can replicate patented items.

OOC: So the PPU could patent such products itself then? Or would they count as "public domain" for it?

OOC: The PPU would have to patent products made, or arrange for licenses to create patented products. If you wished to release them into the public domain, I suppose you could. But, if that were done in an anti-competitive manner, which is what I think you're getting at, WAPO might take action.

Also, any opinion on this?

EDIT: That RL evolution experiment on the bacterium that spontaneously evolved to eat the previously inedible medium it was grown in, is an interesting RL case: could you patent the new kind of bacterium, despite the process of it becoming the new kind was not "man-made"?

OOC: There is case law on this that one could probably look up. I'm not familiar with the precise legal standard, but that mere evolution exists and is, ultimately, the driving force for bacterium creation does not invalidate the artificial inventive influence of human intervention, and left it patentable. In the case I'm thinking of, (US v. Charkrabarty, I think?) the court considered what would happen if after the patent, the bacterium was found in the wild. The court basically said that didn't matter. The entire idea of patent property rights is to encourage useful innovation, so the courts don't actually get hung up on that sort of thing.



EDIT: Auralia also makes a good point about PPU as a sentient lifeform.

[Araraukar]

EDIT: Auralia also makes a good point about PPU as a sentient lifeform.

OOC: Sapient, not just sentient, thankyouverymuch.

And so are you. If a patented Lactobacillus bacterium (I know some of these have been patented in real life) is found to be living and breeding in your gut after you've eaten the product in which it lives (the way the probiotics are supposed to work), are you breaking the patent? Or would you only be breaking it if you were trying to sell the bacteria that have grown inside you?

Also, how can "it's in the public domain" be used maliciously, if in your nation all scientific discoveries are automatically put into the public domain?

[Separatist Peoples]

EDIT: Auralia also makes a good point about PPU as a sentient lifeform.

OOC: Sapient, not just sentient, thankyouverymuch.

And so are you. If a patented Lactobacillus bacterium (I know some of these have been patented in real life) is found to be living and breeding in your gut after you've eaten the product in which it lives (the way the probiotics are supposed to work), are you breaking the patent? Or would you only be breaking it if you were trying to sell the bacteria that have grown inside you?

Also, how can "it's in the public domain" be used maliciously, if in your nation all scientific discoveries are automatically put into the public domain?

OOC: In both cases, it depends on whether the situation is anti-competitive. Lactobacillus breeding in your gut isn't anti-competitive. It's not even a voluntary action. Neither, I imagine, would involuntary metabolic processes in PPU. Voluntarily generating those products in such a manner as to circumvent the need for patent licensing, or establishing them in such a manner as to preempt other patents to deliberately stifle competitive action would be a lot more suspect.

[Araraukar]

OOC: Taking this to TG so as to not threadjack this thread further. We really should have a discussion thread for compliance discussions of the various resolutions...