As Michele indicates in the previous post, we are looking for compelling examples (about three) that we can use in a book introduction to draw in the average reader - convince them that IP is a problem they should be concerned with. In the comments on Michele's post, Michael suggests that it would be helpful if we discuss some candidates. Here goes:
AIDS drugs in Africa
the invention of television (Sarnoff stole it from Farnsworth)
Diebold using the DMCA to cover up the fact their voting machines don't work
the Canadian (?) farmer sued because genetically modified crops got on his property
mp3.com put out of business by RIAA lawsuit
replay TV sued out of existence
destruction of the Italian pharmaceutical industry when patents are introduced
story of the movie Tarnation - cost 0 to make, $400K for music rights
near shutdown of Blackberry network
Quattro pro "look and feel" lawsuit - Lotus versus Borland
why DAT never caught on (due to legally mandated DRM)
why HD DVD probably will never catch on - delayed until obsolete by DRM disputes
the Sony Betamax case
RAMBUS's use of a submarine patent to blackmail the memory chip industry
theft of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell
obstruction of the industrial revolution by James Watt
movement of the chemical industry from England/France/US to Germany/Switzerland due to strong UK type patent system - story of red dye, story of delivery of chemicals to US by U-boat during WWI
Three is a tough one. I would really like to see AIDS medicine there, because AIDS is the biggest natural disaster that has struck mankind since the black death and the amount of people the IM-regime is killing every year is staggering.
But I also love the example of Italian pharmaceuticals, which shows how damaging patents are to the industry. As pharmaceuticals are often cited as number one reason for patents, this could be very helpful.
Perhaps the two pharmaceutical examples could be knitted into one?
Because I would also like to see one of the historical examples, either the Watt and industrial revolution, destruction of american auto industry by a submarine patent, or chemical industry movement. Hard to choose between those, but I think any one of those would serve as a great historical example. (Meaning I can't choose between them, hopefully someone else can come up with reasons).
And then you'd need a modern example, and I honestly do not have a great opinion about which ones would be good.
Finally, you'll need short and good punchlines that convey the message that intellectual monopolies are evil. Perhaps Richard Stallman's story about a dark future could be useful for you?
All could be good examples. The ones that really stand out to me:
AIDS drugs in Africa
Diebold using the DMCA to cover up the fact their voting machines don't work
the Canadian (?) farmer sued because genetically modified crops got on his property
story of the movie Tarnation - cost 0 to make, $400K for music rights
near shutdown of Blackberry network
(although I don't know if this strikes home -- do people just think it's a matter of the big players forking out some money to make things work?)
RAMBUS's use of a submarine patent to blackmail the memory chip industry
obstruction of the industrial revolution by James Watt
What about the whole SCO extortion plan against IBM and other Linux companies?
I also like Stallman's explanation of how patents don't protect the little guy:
This phenomenon of cross-licensing refutes a common myth, the myth of the "starving genius," the myth that patents "protect" the "small inventor." (Those terms are propaganda terms. You shouldn't use them.)
The scenario is like this: Suppose there is a "brilliant" designer of whatever. Suppose he has spent "years starving in the attic" designing a new wonderful kind of whatever, and now wants to manufacture it. Isn't it a shame the big companies are going to go into competition with him, take away all the business, and he'll "starve"?
[...]
But it is conceivable that somebody could have an idea and this idea along with 100 or 200 other ideas can be the basis of making some kind of product, and that big companies might want to compete with him. So let's see what happens if he tries to use a patent to stop them. He says "Oh no, IBM, You cannot compete with me. I've got this patent." IBM says, "Let's see. Let's look at your product. Hmmm. I've got this patent, and this one, and this one and this one and this one and this one, which parts of your product infringe. If you think you can fight against all of them in court, I will just go back and find some more. So, why don't you cross-license with me?" And then the brilliant small inventor says "Well, OK, I'll cross-license." So he can go back and make these wonderful whatever-it-is, but so can IBM. IBM gets "access" to his patent, and gets the right to compete with him, which means this patent didn't "protect" him at all. The patent system doesn't really do that.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf
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(Just getting going... http://www.movingtofreedom.org)
Here is another story on the abuse of patent law:
Patent Deal on a Drug Scrutinized
By STEPHANIE SAUL
The Justice Department is investigating whether a deal involving two big pharmaceutical companies and a generic drug maker thwarted a potentially lower-priced competitor for the blood thinner Plavix, one of the world's top-selling drugs.
The investigation, a criminal inquiry into the drug companies, Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb, was announced yesterday. It could signal a federal crackdown on increasingly common payments by the pharmaceutical industry to stave off competition from low-cost generics.
As part of the inquiry, federal agents, armed with subpoenas, searched two offices Wednesday at the headquarters of Bristol-Myers on Park Avenue in Manhattan, including the office of the chief executive, Peter R. Dolan.
Shares of both companies plummeted on yesterday's news. In a conference call with investment analysts, in which news of the investigation seemed to magnify the financial challenges evident in his company's lackluster second-quarter results, Mr. Dolan said that there was nothing illegal about the agreement and that the company was cooperating with the investigation.
The generic medicine was expected to cost only a fraction of the $4 a day for Plavix, which is widely used to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Plavix had sales of $6.2 billion last year and is by far the best-selling drug for Bristol-Myers, which is based in New York.
Sanofi, which is based in France and jointly markets Plavix with Bristol, issued a statement announcing the investigation, but declined to comment further.
The federal investigation involves an agreement that the two companies reached earlier this year with Apotex, a Canadian maker of generic drugs, after Apotex indicated it was planning to market its version of the drug, which had been approved in January by the Food and Drug Administration.
Initially, Sanofi and Bristol had sued to block Apotex's version on the ground that it violated their patent, and a trial had been scheduled to begin last month in New York. But the companies announced in March that the patent lawsuit had been settled under terms that would have involved a payment to Apotex and an agreement that the company not sell its generic version until September 2011, eight months before the United States patent for Plavix was set to expire.
“The agreement raised very serious competitive concerns,” said David A. Balto, a lawyer and a former policy director for the Federal Trade Commission. “Generic drugs are priced 30 percent, at least, below branded drugs and the potential savings to consumers would be something like $1 billion a year.”
Payments to settle pharmaceutical patent lawsuits can potentially delay the sale of generic drugs. They have recently attracted scrutiny both from the F.T.C. and Congress, where legislation to restrict such deals is under consideration.
Critics say the agreements could make it more lucrative for generic makers to collect money not to market their products than to actually sell them, a trend that could potentially increase the overall price of drugs.
The F.T.C. recently issued a report documenting a rise in the number of patent settlements in which the brand-name manufacturers paid generic makers not to market their generics. In one example, the agency contended that Warner Chilcott, maker of the Ovcon birth control pill, paid $20 million to Barr Laboratories to delay the sale of a generic version.
In Senate testimony last week, Jon Leibowitz, an F.T.C. commissioner, said that such settlements could stifle competition.
In a note to investors yesterday the investment firm CIBC World Markets said the Plavix settlement appeared to have been the most aggressive of the agreements, characterizing it as a “pay not to play” deal.
Bristol-Myers and Sanofi never gave specific details on the amount they were paying to Apotex, but Bristol announced it had set aside $40 million in the first quarter to cover the “minimum” amount of that payment.
The companies revised the agreement in June after questions from the F.T.C. and state attorneys general, agreeing to let Apotex sell the drug beginning in June 2011, rather than September of that year.
The revised agreement requires approval by the F.T.C. and states, which had been expected to rule as early as today. It was unclear yesterday what effect the Justice Department inquiry might have on the F.T.C.-state review.
Under its rules, the F.T.C. is obliged to forward evidence of any criminal activity it suspects to the Department of Justice, whose antitrust division has responsibility for criminal antitrust prosecutions. And there was speculation yesterday that the F.T.C. review had led to the Justice Department inquiry.
Without the settlement, Apotex had a significant chance of losing the patent lawsuit and would not have been able to market its drug until 2012. The two large companies had already prevailed in a patent case in Canada. Ahead of the United States trial, some investment analysts had given Apotex no more than a 40 percent chance of winning.
Apotex had run a risk in going after the generic Plavix market by seeking the F.D.A.'s clearance to sell its version. Such generic approvals are allowed while patents are still in force. But companies that market drugs in violation of another's patent are legally subject to treble damages if they lose patent lawsuits, a deterrent to the marketing of generic drugs while patents are still in force.
C. Anthony Butler, an analyst for Lehman Brothers who covers Bristol, said the investigation's impact on Sanofi and Bristol was uncertain, although it might result in their resuming the patent suit against Apotex. “I'm not clear that it's a major setback,” he said. “It does scare investors. Criminal investigation is a negative phrase.”
The criminal inquiry is a psychological setback for Bristol and its chief, Mr. Dolan, who had hoped the resolution of the Plavix patent dispute would signify the end of a five-year period in which the company was the target of investor lawsuits and a criminal investigation involving its inventory practices.
Bristol is currently on a sort of federal probationary status as a result of the settlement of that case, in which former company officials were accused of lying to investors about a practice called channel-stuffing that inflated sales numbers.
In the case of the Apotex agreement, the review by the F.T.C. and states was required under a consent decree Bristol signed in 2003 after the company was accused of using patent filings to thwart generic rivals for two of its drugs: the cancer treatment Taxol and the anti-anxiety drug BuSpar.
The company announced lackluster second-quarter financial results yesterday that showed Plavix, which accounted for $3.8 billion of revenue at the company last year, has been one of Bristol's growth products during the period.
The company said it earned 35 cents a share for the second quarter, on revenue of $4.87 billion, compared with 47 cents a share on revenue of $4.89 billion in the quarter last year.
On the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Bristol-Myers fell $1.95, or 7.5 percent, to $24.04. American depository receipts of Sanofi-Aventis closed at $47.16, down $2.84, or 5.7 percent.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
EFF has a good web page detailing "endangered gizmos":
http://www.eff.org/endangered/
Kaleidescape is another one that's not on their list yet:
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/040153.php
Also, these are probably too esoteric to make good poster children, but a few of my software patent examples might be useful:
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/039641.php
Actually, there are loads of ridiculous patents that might be highlighted. Amazon's 1-click patent and NetFlick's patent dispute with Blockbuster spring immediately to mind.
I've always thought the "unintentionally copied" decision regarding George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" was the scariest application of copyright. If one can 'copy' something without even being aware of it, where do you draw the line between your own thoughts, which by necessity are influenced by your environment, and another's copyrighted "property"?
