After India, Now Indonesia Introduces Patent Licenses For Generic Versions Of Drugs

As we noted a couple of weeks ago, when we wrote about India's moves to issue compulsory licences for the production of generic versions of expensive, patented drugs, the big fear for Western pharmaceutical companies was that other countries might follow suit. It looks like that's happening in Indonesia, where the country's president has signed a decree authorizing low-cost versions of key HIV drugs: 

On Techdirt.

Batik-Makers Say "Tidak" to Copyright

Yesterday I was talking about how patents are used to propagate Western ideas and power; here's a complementary story about local artists understanding that copyright just ain't right for them:

Joko, speaking at this year’s Solo Batik Fashion Festival over the weekend, said that the ancient royal city was one of the principal batik cities in Indonesia, with no fewer than 500 unique motifs created here that are not found in any other region. The inventory process, however, was hampered by the reluctance of the batik makers to claim ownership over pieces.

The head of the Solo trade and industry office, Joko Pangarso, said copyright registration work had begun last year, but was constantly held up when it was found a particular batik only had a motif name because the creator declined to attach their own.

“So far only 10 motifs have been successfully included in the list,” he said. “The creators acknowledged their creations but asked for minimal exposure.

Interestingly, this is very close to the situation for software. The batik motifs correspond to sub-routines: both are part of the commons that everyone draws upon; copyrighting those patterns is as counter-productive as patenting subroutines, since it makes further creation almost impossible without "infringement". This reduces the overall creativity - precisely the opposite effect that intellectual monopolists claim. (Via Boing Boing.)

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And the Firefoxiest Country is...Indonesia

While some people (like me) have been fixated on the jolly good work being done in Europe in terms of boosting Firefox's market share, it seems that they (I) have overlooked an even bigger success:

One aspect of our global expansion is in our user base. By the end of 2007, nearly fifty percent of Firefox users chose a language other than English. In a fast forward, the first country in which Firefox usage appears to have crossed the 50% mark is Indonesia, surpassing 50% in July 2008. A set of European countries (Sovenia, Poland, and Finland) see Firefox usage above 40%.

And let's not forget that Indonesia is (a) big and (b) getting bigger fast. Indonesian will arguably be the other major world language of the future (along with Mandarin, English, Hindustani, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and French).

Sawing Off the Branch on which We Sit

I am a great believer in trees and the commons they form; it seems to me that going beyond preserving them to extend their coverage across the world could help deal with many of the most pressing problems facing mankind: climate change, desertification, water, etc.

It has always struck me as barmy that the contribution that trees make to the planet has not been better quantified; now it has:

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.

It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.

The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.

The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.

Think about that, and then think of the continuing destruction of forests around the world - in the Amazon, in Africa, in Indonesia, in Russia. This really is the literal equivalent of sawing off the branch on which the whole of humanity sits....

How Sick Are Patents? Ask Indonesia

Some time back I noted that one of the crazier consequences of an obsession with intellectual monopolies was that vital health information - specifically, DNA sequences of bird flu viruses - were not being released to other laboratories for fear that the unscrupulous might patent the damn things (as if naturally-occuring DNA could be patented). Fortunately, the country in question, Indonesia, was persuaded to release them to the scientific community for the common good. And what happens? This:

A recent patent search has revealed that the CDC, which is a WHO collaborating centre, is applying for a patent for a new vaccine against influenza, particularly for bird flu (H5N1). The vaccine incorporates genes from a H5N1 strain isolated from an Indonesian human victim of bird flu in 2005.

The strain that contains the genes was transferred to the WHO GISN by Indonesia for characterization for public health purposes, but may wind up as the property of the US government.

Under US law, the US government agencies would offer licenses to the technology to pharmaceutical companies. The patent application indicates that the US government intends to pursue the claim in most countries of the world, including Indonesia itself, as well as neighboring countries.

Got that? Indonesia releases the sequences, and the US CDC does indeed patent that information, a situation which could then force Indonesia to pay for vaccines based on its own sequence data to protect its citizens. This probably means that fewer vaccines will be bought, more people will die, more mutations in the flu virus, and more deaths globally. So how, exactly, is this particular intellectual monopoly good for the world?

I just hope that one day a book is written about this, and the people responsible are named - and utterly shamed - for actions that are not only morally despicable in themselves, but which endanger literally the whole of humanity. How sick is that...? (Via How the World Works.)

The Other Open Source Java

Sun's Java is not the only one going open source:

In spite of a deal with the U.S.-based software giant Microsoft, the government pledged Wednesday that it would continue promoting the use of open-source software.

State Minister for Research and Technology Kusmayanto Kadiman said that open-source software would greatly benefit Indonesia's technological development.

The Biter Bit - by Bits

Now that the flow of highly-personal "security" information between the US and other countries is a two-way thing, I predict people in the former are going to become as unenthusiastic about it as those in the latter:

Welcome to the new world of border security. Unsuspecting Americans are turning up at the Canadian border expecting clear sailing, only to find that their past -- sometimes their distant past -- is suddenly an issue.

While Canada officially has barred travelers convicted of criminal offenses for years, attorneys say post-9/11 information-gathering, combined with a sweeping agreement between Canada and the United States to share data, has resulted in a spike in phone calls from concerned travelers.

...

Oh, and by the way, if you don't need to travel to Canada, don't think you won't need to clear your record. Lesperance says it is just a matter of time before agreements are signed with governments in destinations like Japan, Indonesia and Europe.

"This," Lesperance says, "is just the edge of the wedge."

Oh, yes, indeedy.... (Via Slashdot.)

Indonesia Hoards Bird 'Flu "Intellectual Property"

You had any doubts about whether intellectual monopolies were a good thing? Try this:

Indonesia is refusing to provide bird flu samples to other countries, companies and the World Health Organisation. Scientists and the WHO have expressed serious concerns about the ban, which they say hampers efforts to avoid a pandemic.

The move could set a precedent for international efforts to control the spread of viruses. Until now, countries have shared virus samples with the WHO, which then provides them to vaccine manufacturers.

In a highly unusual display of patriotism, the Health Minister, Siti Fadillah Supari, claimed Indonesia "owns" the bird flu strain which has spread across the nation, infecting tens of millions of chickens and killing at least 63 people.

Yesterday's announcement of a deal with the pharmaceutical company Baxter comes shortly after Indonesia condemned an Australian research breakthrough that could result in the production of a vaccine within months.

So as the cytokine storm kicks in, and you slowly drown in the fluid that was your lungs, hold on to this comforting thought: you and those you love may die, but the sacred IP virus will live on. (Via Technocrat.)

The Seed Gestapo

For millennia there has been a seeds commons - a shared store of seeds produced by farmers from this year's crop for the following year.

In my wife’s dialect of kari-ya, which is spoken on the island of Panay, in the Philippines, there is a word binhi, which refers to the grains of rice that are set aside and used as seeds in the next planting season. There is a knack to choosing these. You want plump grains with no blemishes. Every farmer knows how to do it, and usually their families too.

And then:

It seems clear the government is working with the seed companies to strong-arm farmers into buying seeds instead of producing them themselves. So doing, it is paving the way for GMO seeds and the jackboot legal regime that comes with them. (In the U.S., Monsanto has sicced its lawyers on hundreds of farmers for “patent infringement”, often when the patented seeds in question simply blew into their fields.)

W(h)ither Sun?

McNealy leaving Sun is certainly the end of an era. But the big question is: what follows?

As far as Jonathan Schwartz is concerned, too much is being made (a) of his ponytail, and (b) of his blog. Perhaps the clearest indication of his thinking is this panegyric:

There is no single individual who has created more jobs around the world than you. And ... I'm not talking hundreds or thousands of jobs, I'm talking millions. They ended up in America and India, Indonesia and Antarctica, Madagascar, Mexico, Brazil and Finland. They ended up everywhere. Everywhere the network travels.

No single individual has spawned so many startups, fueled so much venture investment, or raised so much capital without actually trying - just with a vision of the future that gets more obvious by the day.

No single individual has so effectively created and promoted the technologies at the heart of a new world emerging around us. A world in which the demand for network computing technology will never decline - as we share more family photos, watch more digital movies, do more banking on-line, build more communities on line, run our supply chains, automate our governments or educate our kids.

Unfortunately, Schwartz is not talking about Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who did all these things, and did them entirely out of altruism, but supposedly about McNealy, who did nothing on the same scale, and did it for the dosh. If this is the quality of analysis we can expect from the new head of Sun, it's probably time to find some comfortable chairs, order a dry sherry, and to enjoy the imminent sunset.