I really do feel, that in the interest of humanity, that more open and liberal interpretation of property rights is needed, especially in the field of intellectual property. Furthermore, I concede to you that false advertising IS a crime. But if Zec’s label was Ritz, how is that false advertising? If Zec’s said they are one and the same as Ritz they would be a crime. BUt you insist that Ritz product is original and is patented–I’m not even sure if you can really claim that. How original is Ritz? You are opening up a whole bag of questions here, and quite frankly, I don’t get the feeling that you really thought this through. Hey, you don’t like Koreans fine, but at least be consistant about your stance on intellectual property. And if I don’t honor MPAA and RIAA like you do, well, I guess that makes me a flaming communist.

I for one, cannot imagine how people in India paying the descendents of Habers royalty for using the Haber process to create fertilizers help make the world a better place. And furthermore, I cannot understand how you think that legal system equals to a moral system.

But if you are happy, hey, you are right and I am wrong. Clearly, Zec’s company is a evil and conniving company set out to steal from Ritz and make the world a bad place to live in. I see my errors now. I think it’s clear to everyone that you have won the argument. You are a winner and I, but a loser.

Anyway, it’s up now.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacg.....0020022076

When you patent something you don’t just make a product and call the whole object
patented. Registered patented processes or equipment are very specific. Patent examiners and judges are accustomed to considering even small, incremental changes as deserving new patents. But to answer your silly question if I were to design a product back home I would need to ensure the product was not in violation of copyright and patent laws before it hit the stores. Why is that so bad?

Patent and copyright laws are not just in place to create monopolies or hoard technology as you think. Many of these laws are in place to protect health and safety of consumers. Patented processes especially with regard to food and medicine have to be approved and proven safe by government standards organizations.

VW cites knockoff pharmaceuticals as harmless. Chinese illegal knockoff drugs are hitting Western markets. Many of these drugs have often been proven to be either ineffective or potentially life threatening. Because they do not conform with our “silly” laws, they have been found to contain substandard materials and even traces of heavy metals.

You say Pepsi blatantly copied Coke. What Pepsi did to Coke is worlds apart from what Chinese and Asian companies are doing with high-end Western name brands. This shows how weak your comparisons really are.
First, Pepsi never said it was Coke. Pepsi didn’t copy product design, logo, and name brand. In reality, despite the fact cola is basically cola. Pepsi had the ambition to deliberately differentiate itself from Coke and even had the “nerve” to say it was better. What Asian companies are doing is making an identical product called Koke, Poke or even Coke etc, making the packaging and often contents identical and selling it at half the cost.

Patent laws work. A good example is Polaroid who for years had the exclusive right to it’s instant film technology. Polaroid’s patent ticked away and Polaroid had time to broaden its product base and other companies had time to ready ways in which to apply Polaroid’s technology when it became available. Last time I saw Polaroid even sells DVD players. If Polaroid had no patent to protect its product’s technology they would have been dead in the water decades ago. Fuji and Polaroid have reached agreements on technology and now share compatible systems. Kodak tried to infringe on Polaroids infringement and it cost them about 1 billion dollars in settlements.

Your fashion accessory analogy does prove one thing. The companies who produce these designer goods have been founded by individuals who often put THEIR very names on the logo or brand name. Copying these brand names clearly shows Asian manufacturers violate both business and private citizens rights not to have their names used without consent. This constitutes more than brand name violation but rather a form of personal forgery.

Don’t try to sell me this notion that American patent laws don’t apply here. These countries who knock off have signed trade agreements not to partake in black marketing and copyright infringement this violates international law and thus their own domestic laws. If the Chinese and Koreans don’t like the West’s stringent trade laws then they can hawk their widgets on Hyundai Porters back home instead of accessing our markets,

“Cheon-won!!!” “Cheon-won!!!” “Cheon-won!!

I’ve no idea how many companies are currently selling to the military at preferential rates. I doubt, however, that the number is one. Is it less of a crime if the number of companies is smaller?

The product I mentioned was fish fillets, which are an essentially generic item in the sense that very similar processing techniques are applied by companies to the same raw material. These are purchased by other companies (such as Dongwon, Daerim, or the like), who package and sell them in the same state of processing, or else further continue processing into things like fish sticks before packaging and selling. Korea is not the only market, of course; the company sold to businesses worldwide.

The company that I worked for sold to these entities, as well as selling to the military. Sales that occur through the black market represent lost profit for this company (as well as lost sales to Korean resellers/reprocessors). In this industry there is no need, such as you suggest, to overproduce in order to achieve profitability, since demand outstrips supply.

I ‘m not sure what you mean by these actions ‘not really hurting’, but as I mentioned, the owner’s motivation in discounted military sales was to thank and somehow repay the US government for his success. Why he did it isn’t as material as the fact that he would never have sold at the same price to other customers, and that he didn’t have to. Is criminality defensible so long as it??s ??not really hurting???