The US did the same to Germany after the First World War. As part of the conditions of surrender set in the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to surrender all its patents to the US, in every commercial and military field, from fabrics to printing inks, from rockets and missiles to tanks and vehicles. Much of everything that Germany knew, designed, created up to that time, was surrendered to the US military and US commercial corporations. Countless German patents, including things as common as Bayer Aspirin, were seized by the Americans. This is copying and stealing – by military force – on very grand scale never before seen by any country. The US did the same after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, approaching former Soviet satellite nations as comrades in arms with the purpose of looting everything available, especially anything with military value.
In spite of all the hypocritical noise made today about China, the US is still one of the worst violators of IP in the world, making its own rules to benefit American corporations and stubbornly ignoring the IP legislation and practices of other nations. The Americans more or less invented brand advertising and jealously guard their brands, but there are entire categories of famous names, products and proprietary processes originating in other countries that the Americans refuse to recognise even though they are fully protected in the other 96% of the world.
These are not oversights; the US government deliberately establishes its own rules as to which kinds of IP it will respect and which it will ignore, with the rules always designed to benefit only American firms. Any IP that doesn’t fit US political and commercial ideology will simply be ignored. These names and processes have been protected by laws and treaties in all developed nations and most undeveloped ones for more than 100 years – except by the Americans who adamantly refuse to sign despite repeated requests dating back more than a century.
These products include French champagne and cognac, Burgundy, Rhone and Chablis wine, Italy’s Chianti, Portugal’s Port and Madeira, Spain’s sherry and Hungary’s Tokay. They include Japan’s Kobe beef and Italy’s Parmesan cheese, and of course virgin olive oil. There are more than 600 of these specialised registered copyrights for which the US permits its corporations to violate all international copyright laws and profit illegally from the use of famous names. Champagne, by both French and international law, is a name that can be applied only to a wine produced by a particular method in the Champagne region of France. But not according to the US, whose winemakers gleefully sell US ‘champagne’, in clear violation of their claimed standards and of international laws. On the other hand, anybody printing “Florida Orange Juice” on a product that isn’t from Florida, will meet the full force of US law. European patents on wine or cheese are not valid in the US.
In spite of all the hypocritical noise made today about China, the US is still one of the worst violators of IP in the world, making its own rules to benefit American corporations and stubbornly ignoring the IP legislation and practices of other nations. The Americans more or less invented brand advertising and jealously guard their brands, but there are entire categories of famous names, products and proprietary processes originating in other countries that the Americans refuse to recognise even though they are fully protected in the other 96% of the world.
These are not oversights; the US government deliberately establishes its own rules as to which kinds of IP it will respect and which it will ignore, with the rules always designed to benefit only American firms. Any IP that doesn’t fit US political and commercial ideology will simply be ignored. These names and processes have been protected by laws and treaties in all developed nations and most undeveloped ones for more than 100 years – except by the Americans who adamantly refuse to sign despite repeated requests dating back more than a century.
These products include French champagne and cognac, Burgundy, Rhone and Chablis wine, Italy’s Chianti, Portugal’s Port and Madeira, Spain’s sherry and Hungary’s Tokay. They include Japan’s Kobe beef and Italy’s Parmesan cheese, and of course virgin olive oil. There are more than 600 of these specialised registered copyrights for which the US permits its corporations to violate all international copyright laws and profit illegally from the use of famous names. Champagne, by both French and international law, is a name that can be applied only to a wine produced by a particular method in the Champagne region of France. But not according to the US, whose winemakers gleefully sell US ‘champagne’, in clear violation of their claimed standards and of international laws. On the other hand, anybody printing “Florida Orange Juice” on a product that isn’t from Florida, will meet the full force of US law. European patents on wine or cheese are not valid in the US.
