01-25-2006, 06:28 AM
GrosseschnauzerJan 25 2006, 03:14 AM A question: Do you intend to get to patents and trademarks as well? All three together are call "Intellectual Property Rights" and that might make the whole proposal "sexier" as far as the UN membership is concerned. [/quote]
Hmm. I thought that one of the reasons for repealing UCPL was that it combined copyright and patent law. I guess we should deal with them separately, but I could do it in this proposal. Trademarks and patents are harder, however, especially the latter, because it's so hard to define and nations have an interest in copying each other's work. I'll give it a shot though. Maybe dividing into a copyright & trademark section and a patent section:
Quote: -PREAMBLE-
The United Nations,
RECOGNIZING that the main investment in the creation of intellectual work is not the support needed to display it, but the time or materials spent in conceiving and creating the work;
NOTING that many nations have some sort of copyright law already in place;
SADDENED that these laws can be mutually incompatible, and can fail to protect copyright owners, especially if nations without copyright laws do not respect and enforce the copyright laws of other nations:
-SECTION I: COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS-
1. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution,
a) "copyrightable work" as a work in which the physical materials used to represent it make up a minimal part of its value, and in which most of the value is intellectual, including trademarks of organizations;
b ) "copyright law" as a law that restricts the distribution of copyrightable work;
c) "nation of production" as the nation in which an intellectual work, exactly as it appears in its completion, was first put into tangible form, or where a trademark first appeared on a product or logo with the applicable trademark notification symbol;
d) "tangible form" as a support in which the copyrightable work appears in its complete form, with all creative value visible;
2. PRESERVES any and all copyrights applicable in the nation of production of any work in all UN nations, regardless of where it has been distributed;
3. PRESERVES any and all applicable rights given to the copyright holder by national copyright law throughout UN nations;
4. EMPOWERS copyright holders to restrict the nations in which their international work is distributed, especially for the purpose of protecting work from citizens in non-UN nations who are not required to abide by this resolution.
-SECTION II: PATENTS-
5. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution, "patent" as a protection by national law of an idea for a product or invention for a limited amount of time, after which the idea becomes free for all to use;
6. CAPS the length of patents at seventy-five years past the initiation of a patent, and
7. URGES nations to set the maximum length at less than twenty-five years;
8. MANDATES that patents only be issued when there is no evidence of the invention being used before or at the time of the patent;
9. CREATES the United Nations Patent Registry (UNPR), which will be entrusted with the sole duty of maintaining a database of all patents possessed by all nations in the United Nations;
10. MANDATES that no idea patented in the UNPR be used in any product or device without consent of the patent holder, but
11. EMPHASIZES that ideas may still be restricted in member nations at the will of the national government, unless this is barred by past or future UN legislation;
12. DECLARES that if two patents are found, at the time of the setup of the UNPR, that cover sufficiently similar material to be called the same patent, the one that was first registered in a national office will be declared the one valid in all UN nations, unless the records are found to not be accurate, in which case the patents will all become null and void;[/quote]
Hmm. I thought that one of the reasons for repealing UCPL was that it combined copyright and patent law. I guess we should deal with them separately, but I could do it in this proposal. Trademarks and patents are harder, however, especially the latter, because it's so hard to define and nations have an interest in copying each other's work. I'll give it a shot though. Maybe dividing into a copyright & trademark section and a patent section:
Quote: -PREAMBLE-
The United Nations,
RECOGNIZING that the main investment in the creation of intellectual work is not the support needed to display it, but the time or materials spent in conceiving and creating the work;
NOTING that many nations have some sort of copyright law already in place;
SADDENED that these laws can be mutually incompatible, and can fail to protect copyright owners, especially if nations without copyright laws do not respect and enforce the copyright laws of other nations:
-SECTION I: COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS-
1. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution,
a) "copyrightable work" as a work in which the physical materials used to represent it make up a minimal part of its value, and in which most of the value is intellectual, including trademarks of organizations;
b ) "copyright law" as a law that restricts the distribution of copyrightable work;
c) "nation of production" as the nation in which an intellectual work, exactly as it appears in its completion, was first put into tangible form, or where a trademark first appeared on a product or logo with the applicable trademark notification symbol;
d) "tangible form" as a support in which the copyrightable work appears in its complete form, with all creative value visible;
2. PRESERVES any and all copyrights applicable in the nation of production of any work in all UN nations, regardless of where it has been distributed;
3. PRESERVES any and all applicable rights given to the copyright holder by national copyright law throughout UN nations;
4. EMPOWERS copyright holders to restrict the nations in which their international work is distributed, especially for the purpose of protecting work from citizens in non-UN nations who are not required to abide by this resolution.
-SECTION II: PATENTS-
5. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution, "patent" as a protection by national law of an idea for a product or invention for a limited amount of time, after which the idea becomes free for all to use;
6. CAPS the length of patents at seventy-five years past the initiation of a patent, and
7. URGES nations to set the maximum length at less than twenty-five years;
8. MANDATES that patents only be issued when there is no evidence of the invention being used before or at the time of the patent;
9. CREATES the United Nations Patent Registry (UNPR), which will be entrusted with the sole duty of maintaining a database of all patents possessed by all nations in the United Nations;
10. MANDATES that no idea patented in the UNPR be used in any product or device without consent of the patent holder, but
11. EMPHASIZES that ideas may still be restricted in member nations at the will of the national government, unless this is barred by past or future UN legislation;
12. DECLARES that if two patents are found, at the time of the setup of the UNPR, that cover sufficiently similar material to be called the same patent, the one that was first registered in a national office will be declared the one valid in all UN nations, unless the records are found to not be accurate, in which case the patents will all become null and void;[/quote]