Patent Abuse..

"A Patent is a Privilege, granted by the people (the State), to assist in the development of a 'benefit' to the people. Any patent can be revoked by the people (the State) if it is abused or proves not to be a 'benefit' to the people."
Currently, patents are seen as a license to monopolize, a license to extort as much profit as possible from the public (the ones who granted the privilege).

Some of the patent problems that would be solved by an International Patent Authority (I.P.A.)..

•With each new race to a product breakthrough, like High Density DVDs, there are always several losers. Both HD-DVD & Blu-Ray were great ideas each costing many millions of dollars to develop but in the final marketing, one had to fail.. That huge waste of money and time is not just a blow to that company, it is a loss to the nation that we can't afford. (see below for our policy on the IPA)

• Any garage inventor can patent a revolutionary idea and then struggle with the detail for a whole decade! A larger institution could have delivered that benefit to the public within weeks. A decade of public benefit was lost.

The role the IPA (International Patent Authority)..

The majority of patents would be shareable. The IPA would issue and control all patents, It would be responsible for the sharing of royalties between all research bodies contributing to the 'innovation'.
The current Patent Wars require each R & D company to retain the services of dozens of Lawyers. This is very expensive to the community because those costs are passed on to us.
The current Patent system requires that for most innovations, there is only one winner - and therefore 9 losers! If an R&D company only wins patents for one out of ten projects, then the profits on that one project must cover the 9 losses! Therefore the markup is ten times higher than it needs to be.

We need a governance system similar to that used by Australias CSIRO (a government research agency that is famous for its innovation) Within the CSIRO are many independent research groups which continually report all their goals and progress to 'head office' which, in turn, shares every breakthrough or failure among all related groups so no effort is duplicated. 'Head office' controls the Patents and ensures all contributing teams share in the royalties.
The IPA would function like the CSIRO 'head office'.. The many international research bodies would continually register all their goals and progress to the IPA. If, during the development stage of the "innovation", another R&D body presented supportive ideas on that innovation, they would be allowed to register their contribution and 'join the group'. They would then be able to view the technical input of the whole group and thus avoid duplicated effort. Depending on the IPAs final assessment of the entire groups contributions, they would receive a share in the final royalties.

The aim of the IPA is to..

• Ensure that the public, who are the ultimate owners of all patents, are never disadvantaged by the granting of any patent.
• Ensure that 'Big Oil' doesn't buy a patent for a new "hydrogen engine" and so prevent any further development of that engine.
• Prevent courts in Texas from granting patents on ancient Chinese remedies - or the human genome.
• Ensure that the granting of a patent to a school boy in Iceland doesn't prevent all the great R&D companies contributing to the innovation. (That 'school-boy' will always receive the lions share of the royalties.)

The Current International Patent laws are already collapsing..

There is no real obligation for foreign countries to honor any foreign patent. It is simply a matter of 'acting honorably'..
The biggest danger is that Asian developers will see no obligation to honor a patent system that is corrupt and totally un-honorable! The whole fragile system of international patents is collapsing from its own corruption.
For example.. Every year, 'Doctors without Borders' are saving the lives of 10s of thousands of Aids victims. They struggle to find the $70/year it costs for each life.. The world applauds their effort.. The world applauds the Indian Drug companies that breach patents to provide those drugs for $70/year.. The world despises the USA drug companies who demand $5,000 dollars for each $70 prescription and are suing 'Doctors without Borders'..
It doesn't matter that logic and 'the law' are on the side of the US patents - the world sees it as a battle between good and evil - with the US patents being 'evil'.

Like the global financial system, the Patent system is heading for an unprecedented collapse!
Both these systems are so corrupted by rampant greed, impossible convolution and predatory practice that they will both 'go down' in history as a "crime against humanity".