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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (169885)	8/25/2005 5:37:49 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The purpose of intellectual property rights is NOT to help companies like Disney keep making money by promoting Mickey Mouse. The laws were meant as a way of encouraging people to innovate by granting them exclusive rights for a LIMITED AND RELATIVELY SHORT period of time. That time has long expired for Disney and they have not come up with another Mickey like character because they can keep milking the 80-years old cash cow. Therefore the changes in laws have prevented them from fulfilling their intended purpose. Secondly, should, could, would, does not interest me. I am discussing the system as it is today and the problems with it are not of the "minor" or "occasional" variety. Ginger juice itself should not be patentable period. It is something that has been in common use for a long time and there is no way you can prove someone in the past has not used it for any purpose you are thinking of patenting it for. My example of ginger juice was closer to the truth than you may realize. There is a substance in fermented rice yeast that gives it its red color. This is the same substance that makes Peking Duck so red (take a look the next time you are in Chinatown). It so happens that this substance, commercially known as Cholestin, will reduce cholesterol dramatically and has fewer side effects than drugs. Its effects are well known in China. However FDA banned imports of Cholestin (clearly a food supplement) because it would interfere with profits of drug companies (officially because the substance is close to cholesterol drugs). So if the substance is so close to the drug, how come pharmaceutical companies were granted patents on their cholesterol lowering drugs?!