Would you support

[justinsb]

the creation of a United Nations Open Source Research and Development Agency? The basic idea goes something like this: Each member nation (except the very poorest) would be asked to contribute the equivelant of $1 U.S. to a fund which would then be used, either through the UN's own labs or through grants to universities to develop medicines and technologies to aid in sustainable development (such as alternative fuels, water purification etc). The open source part means that any patents derived from this research would be publicly available for anyone to use without charge, but any derivitive work (improvements on the original patent) would also have to be open source. This would IMO - make companies more likely to manufacture these products because there would be no R & D outlay or patent licencing to worry about, it would keep the costs of these products down because no one would have exclusive licence to them and it would create jobs in the first and third world because they could be produced by anyone (so if people in Somalia, Egypt or Venezuela wanted to manufacture them for the domestic market there would be nothing to stop them).

That's the short version anyway...thoughts?

[getmeouttahere]

1. Initial reaction is that it sounds great.....

and wouldn't this make it easier to get inexpensive AIDS medication to Africa, because the patents have been held by U.S. corporations who may be influenced by the idealogues at BushCo?

[justinsb]

4. It would if

they developed new AIDS medications - it wouldn't change existing patents.

[expatriot]

2. There are like what, 180 member nations to the UN?

That's like $180. Did you mean each country contribute one million US dollars or something like that?

[justinsb]

3. Sorry, I meant per capita

[expatriot]

5. China and India would be a little hesitant :) nt

[justinsb]

6. Maybe

but they would also stand to benefeit substantially and China has traditionally done intellectual property this way. Being communist - with most arts and science funded by the government they don't, or haven't until recently, recognized patents or copyrights.