Intellectual property laws in China, India are flawed, claims US govt without irony

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/02/intellectual_property_china_india/

While the European Union continues to gaze into its members’ navels and pretend that it has no existential crisis, the rest of the world carries on.

One of the economic cancers of our times has been the corrupt misuse of copyright law to create artificial barriers to trade.

The article is old - May 2015 - but remains valid, because nothing much has changed since May 2015.  Patent trolls remain a key parasite on the development of new technology, especially with American patent law being so lax in its recognition of patents.  American patent law enables the person with the idea to take profits from the different person who takes the risk to make the idea work.  It’s fundamentally immoral in itself, yet American patent law is easily enforceable and opens itself to abuse by patent trolls.  Hence why Apple can successfully sue Samsung for an idea that a four-year old child could have had.

You could patent a fart under American patent law if you wanted.  Hell, Apple probably already has.  If you could find a way of enforcing your patent, you’d be rich as a consequence of biology (and remember, it’s not just humans that fart).

Patent law would be a great opportunity for worldwide harmonisation.  The European Union gave it a go - the Americans would never have bought into the EU’s ideas, because the EU’s aren’t corrupt enough for the Capitol Hill lobbyists funded by patent trolls - but otherwise got distracted on this stupid political integration federalist thing.

Hey ho.