India vows to sabotage ACTA | Hacker News Reader

India vows to sabotage ACTA

arstechnica.com

97 pointsCoryOndrejka19 comments

There's a background story for this: developing countries are very wary of international trade agreements. Here's why.

In the last decades the WTO created a new open and global economy. But an often untold story is that the European Union, U.S. and Japan deliberately left agriculture out of it, purely for internal political reasons (farmers=votes). Agriculture markets in rich countries are still very fiercely fenced by protectionism (hight taxes, fat subsidies, restrictive legislation, etc). For us (I live in Brazil) this is really a big deal because agriculture is precisely where our main competitive advantages are. We end up being only customers, not sellers.

The prevailing thinking here is that most trade agreements are a set-up by rich countries. Until agriculture is fixed in the WTO, our best strategy is to bomb any trade agreement.

"The prevailing thinking here is that most trade agreements are a set-up by rich countries. Until agriculture is fixed in the WTO, our best strategy is to bomb any trade agreement."

i have to kind of agree with that. I remember the case of Bastmati rice in India. It has been grown in India for yonks without any patents or any IP. Suddenly there were companies from the west patenting Basmati (under the name Kasmati) and trying to prevent indian farmers from growing Bastmati. Ofcourse it didnt hold for long but was a clear less then for India. Same happend to the "neem" tree/plant.

Glad to see India stand up against some of the hypocratic regulations imposed on it.

Disclaimer: I am originally from India.

They even patented turmeric http://www1.american.edu/ted/turmeric.htm

Well, its use as a medicine. And it was overturned.

But still. Wow. Really makes you trust the effectiveness of the patent office, don't it?

Overturned or not, the notion that a big powerful entity with irresistible weapons can suddenly show up and demand impossible payment for things you've been doing for 1000's of years based simply on a bit of paper written in a language unintelligible to you should be terrifying.

It sounds like a science fiction writers dream, however. Sounds like a fabulous "District 9" sequel. The aliens return not for vengeance, but royalties!

actually regarding the effectiveness of the patent office.. i think it sort of comes down to (dis)incentives.. rejecting a patent on any ground requires explanation by the patent clerk.. and to make it worse, some of the compensation is actually proportional to how many patents they approve (some how indicating that they have gone through it)... combine the two (hard work to explain a rejection, and reward for number of acceptances) you have no regard of prior art or novelty or worse obviousness. I dont see why developing countries (or any entity) has to put up with and accept such shoddy practices purely because they benefit the entities with powerful lobbies (patent attorneys and large companies with enough resources to pursue litigation)...

Agriculture is strategic to a country, I would say like military is. And you don't let strategic market in the hands of international trade agreements.

It can be argued that any industry is strategic to a country.

And it's funny you should mention military, I know serveral companies in Denmark that are sub-contractors to various branches of foreign, including the US, military. Countries do indeed let the international free market supply their militaries..

True, but we still don't have enough independence yet (in France). If Agriculture were really seen as the strategic asset it actually is, we could instantly stop importations without starving.

"But an often untold story is that the European Union, U.S. and Japan deliberately left agriculture out of it, purely for internal political reasons (farmers=votes)."

Which is true, but quite odd. Remember when people playing Farmville surpassed the number of actual farmers in the U.S.? The number of people employed in farming in wealthy countries has steadily decreased, with no indication that the trend will change in the for-seeable future.

It seems to be yet another case of a large, established industry purchasing government regulation that benefits only the profits of those companies.

The situation described at the end of the article actually happened last year. A shipment of generic drugs going from India to Brazil got confiscated in Amsterdam although they are perfectly legal in both countries.

The point of the matter is that legislation is tied to jurisdiction and some multinationals would like to be free from this restriction. We seem to have reached the point in which people believe IP to be a natural and universal right.

If rich countries push this hard enough, we might see less commerce going through their ports.

It would be interesting to see shipping routes set up that deliberately avoid the large economies supporting ACTA. It could conceivably become a competitive advantage for "emerging" economies like Brazil, India, Russia, and China develop their own trade agreements among themselves, and leave the ACTA countries out. They would probably have more leverage, then, to negotiate better terms with the ACTA nations.

I think more of such stuff is going to come in coming years. It is just a manifestation of changing economic profile of the world. I believe something similar might have happened at climate talks - http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/05/05/Lea...

How it plays out in the long term is anybody's guess. But right now the EU and US have run very high debts which are only increasing with the deficits. With not very good immediate economic prospects, the developed world is beginning to learn to have new folks at the table. When you are neck deep in debt and those new folks are your creditors, there really is no choice.

Fact from Last week's Hindustan times Newspaper: Branded medicine pills sell for an average of 7X times Genreic medicines.

But trying to derail the trade agreement, which is nearing completion, could be difficult for countries not involved in the process.

Nuclear weapons?

What, does ACTA have an oil leak they need to plug?

What I was trying to say was that India could probably derail the treaty if they really wanted to.

And get annihilated in the process? I doubt they want it that much.

The metaphoric 'nuclear weapon' in this case is to deliberately flood the World with knock-offs of drugs and other products the treaty is whinging about.

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