UN Patent Law
| #156: UN Patent Law
| |
|---|---|
| Category: | Free Trade |
| Proposed By: | Ceorana |
| Strength: | Significant |
| Status: | Repealed |
| Adopted: | Thu Jun 29 2006 |
| Votes For: | 7,084 |
| Votes Against: | 3,998 |
UN Patent Law, officially Resolution #156, was a free trade-category United Nations resolution authored by Ceorana. It met with some opposition, passing with a percentage of 64%. Shortly after its passage, a similar resolution, the UN Copyright Convention which dealt with international copyrights, was also sponsored by Ceorana and adopted by the UN. Together the two resolutions formed the basis of international intellectual property law for about one year. Less than one year after its adoption, Kelssek sponsored a repeal that challenged the international system developed by this resolution on the grounds that it prevented access to medication for those who may need it. The debate was split largely on economic lines, with capitalist nations supporting the original resolution and socialist nations supporting the repeal. The resolution was officially repealed on Mar. 30, 2007.
Contents
Resolution History
Drafting
Ceorana became interested in working on an intellectual property resolution in late 2005. After significant guidance by nations such as Gruenberg and Groot Gouda, Ceorana decided to narrow the focus down to patents. The resolution was drafted beginning at the end of 2005 and ending with the successful submission in mid-April 2006. No co-author was listed.
Telegram Campaign
The resolution was successfully brought to quorum after a few attempts. Ceorana enlisted the help of Antrium, Golgothastan and Fonzoland in telegramming delegates, in the end telegramming around 800 delegates.
Floor Debate
Many points were brought up at the UN floor debate, many highly critical of patents in general. Especially of interest was the effect of the resolution on access to medicine.
Resolution Text
| Category: | Free Trade | Strength: | Significant | Proposed By: | Ceorana |
|---|
Description: The UN,
NOTING that without guaranteed protection of ideas for products, there is no incentive to invent them, and that without international protection of ideas for products, there is no incentive to market them internationally,
AFFIRMING that international trade strengthens all economies involved,
CONCLUDING that the international protection of ideas for products will strengthen the economies of all member states,
NOTING WITH REGRET that national patent laws laws are inevitably different and therefore incompatible, but that this could be solved through an international patent law,
1. DEFINES, for the purpose of this resolution:
a. "patent" as a protection by law of a novel, useful and nontrivial idea for a product or invention for a limited amount of time, after which the idea becomes free for all to use;
b. "information" as including all knowledge, both known and unknown, specifically genetic code of natural organisms, scientific theories, mathematical algorithms, etc.;
2. STRESSES that patents are protections on the idea for an invention, not the specific invention, but the specific invention is by definition covered in the patent for its idea;
3. CREATES the United Nations Patent Registry (UNPR) for the purpose of keeping a registry of patents in all nations, which shall register patents by the following process:
a. The inventor of the product, or his/her/its designee, must write an application to the UNPR detailing the nature of the product, what ideas should be patented as part of the patent, and detailed sketches, blueprints, photographs, construction plans and/or other related media detailing and defining the product and idea;
b. The inventor of the product now has exclusive use of the idea and production rights to the product until the approval process is complete;
c. The UNPR will review the patent, both to make sure that it is not too wide in the scope of the ideas that it wishes to cover and that it is not a duplication of a patent already in the UNPR;
d. If these criteria are met, the patent will be approved and given an identification number, from which time the inventor holds exclusive rights to the idea and exclusive production rights to the product for a period of 17 years, after which the idea is free for all to use;
4. DECLARES that there will be a three year period, starting at the time of passage of this resolution, in which all national patents shall be submitted to the UNPR for review, and any patents which cover the same idea will not be internationally protected unless all of the patent holders can reach an agreement on joint ownership of the patent within a period of five years;
5. STIPULATES that patents may not pertain to:
a. any invention which is already in use at the time of application;
b. any intangible product, such as computer code or information;
c. biological organisms;
d. specific designs for inventions, although a specific design must be covered in the patent;
6. DECLARES that patents may be held by any person or corporation and that they are transferable by mutual agreement, at which time the UNPR must be notified;
7. EMPHASIZES that nations still have the right to have and enforce national patent law, which may or may not cover the same inventions as the UNPR, but reminds them that UN Patent Law is supreme to national patent law, and any inventions patented in the UNPR may not be produced in any UN nation without consent of the patent holder.
- Votes For: 7,084
- Votes Against: 3,998
- Implemented: Fri May 5 2006
Voting Analysis
A poll was attached to the official UN Floor debates, asking both UN delegates and members if they voted for, against, or abstained from voting on the UN Patent Law resolution. A total of 121 votes were cast in the poll on the UN Floor. The UN Floor debates had a similar distribution of votes compared to the overall UN vote.
Since the poll had separate responses for delegates and non-delegate members, it was possible to see if there was a different in support for the resolution between the two members. It seems that delegates tended to favor the resolution slightly more than normal members, as shown in the graph below.
Gameplay Impacts
This resolution had no significant impact on the way NationStates is played, although it did improve the economies of all member states.
