The rights of intellectual property users

As we all know, Microsoft has been declared guilty of monopolistic conduct by a US court. What would have happened if the United States, based on the fact that Microsoft is an American company, had simply ignored these problems? Would it have been up to our humble Pro-Competencia to initiate the legal proceedings against this giant among giants?

All evidence leads us to suspect that as far as the protection of intellectual property is concerned, we are still in an embryonic stage. There is still a lot to discuss and decide upon. As an example we can cite the unilateral statements issued by President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair in which both guarantee free access to data produced by research into the decodification of the human gene. This caused share prices of firms dedicated to this research to tumble. Likewise, serious debate has been stirred up in the press about the validity of many patents issued in the world of the Internet.

When I then received (as did many others) a letter and brochure illustrated with a set of handcuffs and in which I was curtly advised I should legalize all the software I was using before the 30th of April. Should I not do so, I would be confronting severe fines, would have my hard disk sequestered and would be subject to up to four years in prison, I was galvanized into reflecting a bit more on this issue.

My first conclusion was that due to the fact that all of the legal apparatus that regulates this matter was developed by the owners of 99.99% of intellectual property rights, countries like Venezuela that only have users and royalty payers, must with urgency develop their own theoretic frame of reference. The following are some points for discussion:

Any idea produced by a human being is the result of what the latter has inherited from human civilization and makes that person simply a conveyor and official spokesman of these ideas. He or she should not expect any other remuneration other than sincere thanks for work well done or in very few cases, maybe a Nobel Prize.

Any investment in the publicity of trademarks is equivalent to investment in protectionist barriers and in this sense does not lead us towards the maximization of the benefits that can be produced by a real free market. For example, the possibility that a pirate McDonald’s could be allowed to set up right across the street from an original McDonald’s, leaving it up to the consumer to decide which is better, would dramatically expand the frontiers of free competition.

When the authorities award Microsoft the rights to ownership of a particular software, they do so with the understanding that there are other parameters and competitive elements in the market that limit the capability of this company to abuse its position of advantage. This could be valid in a domestic market, but may not be in a globalized world. Microsoft establishes its prices for software based on the American market in which it considers its prices to be reasonable. Should Venezuela have been Microsoft’s only market, I am sure the price of this software would be one tenth of the prices it currently charges. By transferring to Venezuela the protection awarded to Microsoft in the United States, we can infer that since the price is the same in both countries, what in the US is seen as reasonable protection could be seen in Venezuela as monopolistic behavior.

You may ask yourselves what could possibly stimulate the acidity of the abovementioned hypotheses relative to the rights of the Users of Intellectual Property, Trademarks and Patents. I remind you of my opposition to the abusive ad-valorem taxes that are indiscriminately being imposed on oil production by many nations around the globe.

Based on data taken from the “World Oil Trends 1999” published by Arthur Andersen and Cambridge Energy Research Associates in the UK, for example, taxes on gasoline which in 1985 were 85% have now reached an absurd 456%. Evidently, these taxes have caused the increase of the price of oil based products for the consumer. In England, the price index for these products went from 100% in 1980 to 247% in 1998. The result of this for Venezuela is clear as day. Demand for crude oil dropped and the price index of crude oil went from 100% in 1980 to a mere 18% in 1998.

The above simply means that Venezuela’s oil income was affected very negatively. This leads me to think that there is no reason for us to undersign treaties or pacts that obligate our judges to be modern day Sheriffs of Nottingham, thereby helping others to defend intellectual aspirations to intellectual income. Especially when we consider that oil is a non-renewable resource while other intellectual products are by definition renewable resources.