[Gllug] Patents *again*

[Christopher Currie]

Rich Walker wrote:

>this time round, the reference is to *industrial property*!

>does anyone know where that particular phrase comes from? it's
>relatively new, I think, and designed to get us to ignore academia when
>thinking about the ownership of knowledge...
>http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/

Looks as if it comes from Japan, where they've been using it for several years 
for patents etc:
http://www.ncipi.go.jp/english/about/index.html

but see in Romania:
http://www.geocities.com/indprop2001/

Elsewhere,  there seems to be a concerted plan to  extend its meaning and 
change to it this month.

1. Wikipedia, on what looks like a new page dated 14 December, defines 
'industrial' as a 'subset' of 'intellectual' (i.e. more narrowly than WIPO 
etc.):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_property


2. These gnomes of Basel have changed their name before changing what they say 
they're about: 
http://www.ficpi.org/

3. Here an article wholly about 'intellectual property' has a title of 
'industrial property' on a page edited in 2006:
http://www.syngentafoundation.com/genetic_engineering_biotechnology.htm

4. The IP Australia homepage includes an undated insertion, possibly made on 
16 January, which pretends to be part of an earlier change made on 20 June 
2005:

="DC.Subject" SCHEME="IP Thesaurus" CONTENT="Intellectual property management, 
Intellectual property offices, industrial property, Patents, Trade marks, 
Industrial designs, Plant breeders rights">
<meta NAME

Standard diplomatic/palaeographical techniques indicate that the above is a 
forgery.

5. And the European Commission has adopted it systematically (see the source 
with keywords: a metadata search for 'intellectual property' wouldn't find 
it):
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/indprop/index_en.htm

(it includes just one bit of carelessness:
<a href="/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/piracy/index.htm">                    
Enforcement of intellectual property right</a></td>
)  

It's puzzling that a Google explicit search for the whole phrase 'industrial 
property' brings up e.g. AIPPI homepage (www.aippi.org/ ) which doesn't 
include the phrase even in its source.

6. The UK's site hasn't caught up yet, still referring to 'intellectual 
property':
http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/

but it does have this little Newspeak gem (*my emphasis*):
|Some other countries, such as the USA, which may be a large potential market 
|for software, have a more *liberal* approach to software patenting, and 
|often grant patents for software which would be excluded in the UK or EPO. 

Restrictions Are Freedom?

Christopher
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