*** BERNARD REMICHE (Ed.): Brevet, innovation et intérêt général. Le Brevet: pourquoi et pour faire quoi? De Boeck & Larcier (39 rue des Minimes, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-10) 482510 - Fax: 482519 - email: commande@deboeckservices.com - Internet: http://www.larcier.com ). "Droit/Economie/ International" series. 2007, 608 pp. ISBN 978-2-8044-2448-0.
Patents were set up a little over two centuries ago and are now triumphing in this age of globalisation with nearly 120,000 patent applications being lodged with the EU patent office in 2003 and around 350,000 with the US patent office. And this figure is continuing to mushroom. So much for facts - now for the questions. Has this resistible rise of intellectual property in general and patents in particular helped ensure that the aim of both remains what it was at the start, namely encouraging innovation and creation while reserving their use? Starting from a system which, in the aim of encouraging investment in research and the spread of knowledge, writes Prof. Bernard Remiche, grants the creator a certain monopoly over his/her invention, one notes a trend today to want to own the discovery, idea or even life itself. He explains that this means that the question therefore arises of the utility of this extension and its compatibility with the very foundation of intellectual property, namely the general interest. This immediately raises further questions. Should a strengthening of intellectual property rights be recommended and should one believe that they are essential for progress in modern society, that they reflect an unavoidable reality and will provide a useful weapon for Europe against its competitors? Or, on the contrary, should one be cautious and consider the potential dangers of this change in terms of the free market, the circulation of knowledge, respect for life and the impact on education and public health?
The book provides enlightening and scientifically nuanced answers to these highly significant questions and plenty more besides. The fruit of research carried out in connection with the Arcelor Chair at the 'Université Catholique de Louvain' in Belgium into the connection between technology and law, the book publishes the proceedings of an inter-disciplinary conference where the issue was discussed against the general backdrop of the balance to be struck between the general interest and individual interests involved. The first part of the book sets the backdrop - two great experts in the question of patents, an economist, Prof. Scherer of Harvard University and a lawyer, Prof. Vivant of Montpellier University, describe the big challenges in the modern world, the former gauging global well-being in the light of the patentability of pharmaceutical products. These two introductory reports are followed by more targetted essays. Carlos M. Correa of Buenos Aires University shows that the Global Intellectual Property Organisation's action plan for patents does not, in the current state of the world, serve the interests of developing countries. Dr. Jean-Louis Vanherweghem of the 'Université Libre de Bruxelles' in Belgium asks whether academic medicine is for sale, particularly in the light of biotechnology. Patrice Vidon, chair of the French 'Compagnie Nationale des Conseils en Propriété Intellectuelle', describes the "Projet de Livre blanc sur une politique européenne globale de Propriété industrielle" (draft White Paper on an EU overall industrial property policy), noting that its aim should be to imagine overall policies that will benefit EU companies in the long-term in order to improve the synchronising of intellectual property policy with the EU's economic and trade policies, and negotiate international reciprocal measures, while strengthening professionals and involving public opinion. The second part of the book is fully devoted to the question and controversy surrounding patents for biotechnology, with the authors addressing the ethical issues at stake and the importance of considering that discovery is not the same thing as invention. The third part of the book explores in the same spirit the questions surrounding software patents and commercial creations. The fourth book looks at the issues raised in the third part, but this time from the angle of the general interest.
Needless to say, a book of this ilk is far too rich, and in places far too detailed, to be summarised with any pertinence. I will quote two comments by Bernard Remiche from his summing up. He is the director of the Arcelor Chair, and argues firstly that it is clearly necessary to try and develop a patent system which, in global terms, takes account of global general interest, probably rather hesitantly at first, and which, within specific countries, incorporates the national general interest. This means that developing countries would recover some of the freedom they lost with the World Trade Organisation's TRIPS (trade-related intellectual property) deal signed in Marrakesh. Prof. Remiche invites the EU to not religiously copy the United States' 'patent everything' approach, asking whether seeking the strongest competitiveness possible, the greatest accumulation of material wealth and the search for the highest levels of profitability could be reconciled with the EU's collective model, based on values that are not exclusively economic but take solidarity into account, along with access to good health and education for all and, more generally, overall well-being. What a good question! Which sends me to the warning made by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of 'market Bolsheviks', which leads Prof. Michel Vivant to argue that patents are not an end in themselves but a tool. And it is by asking how we intend to fashion it that we will also be able to fashion the innovation society and also the sharing society that we claim to want (or say that we want)…
Michel Theys
*** INGE GOVAERE, HANNS ULLRICH (Eds.): Intellectual Property, Public Policy, and International Trade. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes - Peter Lang (1 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). "College of Europe Studies" series, No. 6. 2007, 232 pp, €27-90. ISBN 978-90-5201-064-9.
Looking at intellectual property, this book focussed on the 'basic equation' that is supposed to underlie intellectual property, namely the fact that short-term pursuit of the private interests of holders of intellectual property helps meet public interest in the long-term. The authors argue that this idea hides a far more complex situation and there is considerable tension between private property and the public interest. Is there such a huge contradiction between the protection of investment in the knowledge-based society, so dear to the Lisbon Strategy, and the combining banner of free competition? Comprising eight scientific essays arising from an open debate among experts at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium) in 2005, the book makes a critical analysis of the TRIPS agreement on the trade aspects of intellectual property, highlighting the paradoxes inherent in the global economy, regretting monopolies and the fragmentation of the EU pharmaceutical industry and analysing the impacts of the Doha TRIPS exception and competition law, before discussing the question of biodiversity-based drugs. An instructive discussion which will help readers understand the issues at stake when it comes to protecting intellectual property.
(TBa)
*** MARTIN FRANSMAN: The New ICT Ecosystem. Implications for Europe. Kokoro (41 Morningside Park, Edinburgh EH10 5EZ, UK). 2007, 229 pp. ISBN 978-0-9557710-1-9.
Specialising in the comparative study of technological innovation systems since the 1980s, Martin Fransman has dedicated his most recent book to studying the ICT (information and communications technology) ecosystem. This means the ever more widespread trend of configuring all electronic devices in a network, 'providing platforms which Internet providers use to deliver content and applications.' The title was chosen specially because the author explains that ICT stakeholders (network suppliers, network operators, suppliers of content and application, consumers and governments) work like an ecosystem which, in the case of Europe, seems to be deregulated. Facing ferocious competition from the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and India, Europe is lagging behind. Martin Fransman says that there is a clear lack of consideration for new technologies, which are a threat to EU competitiveness. The author notes that 'we need to focus primarily on innovation and related investment in the European ICT sector in order to achieve selected ICT performance objectives' depending on global standards, and the author therefore aims to show the path to be taken in terms of policy and regulation at EU level. To this end, he makes a comparative study of the EU, US and East Asian systems. He then looks at the background to progress in ICT in these regions. A very detailed study.
(TBa)
*** CHRISTIAN DUFOUR, ADELHEID HEGE, SOFIA MURHEM, WOLFGANG RUDOLPH, WOLFRAM WASSERMANN: Industrial Relations in Small Companies. A Comparison: France, Sweden and Germany. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes - Peter Lang (voir coordonnées supra). Collection "Work & Society", n° 56. 2007, 229 p., 31,90 €. ISBN 978-90-5201-360-2.
Where do small companies fit in terms of industrial relations? Seeking to provide the most objective answers possible to this difficult question, the authors of this book carried out a comparative study of situations experienced in France, Sweden and Germany, countries chosen because of their different ways of organising economic, political and social life. The aim is to open 'new paths of enquiry' in an area of research which is still at its beginnings. To this end, they met with employers and employees, members of trade unions and employers' groups, and various industrial relations specialists. Individual employee rights, the role of the employers, representation systems, collective bargaining etc - everything is conscientiously dissected to determine whether small companies have their own industrial practices and to compare them with the practices of big countries, comparing the specifics of each country studied and reach conclusions at the international level. Only aiming to be a preliminary study that will serve as a model for more detailed research, the authors manage nevertheless to introduce very interesting ideas. They point out, for example, that 'to avoid an in-depth analysis of small companies according to their specificity would be a blind spot as regards industrial relations by the very fact of their large numbers and their demographic features'.
(TBa)
*** MARGRIT MULLER, TIMO MYLLYNTAUS (Eds.): Pathbreakers. Small European Countries Responding to Globalisation and Deglobalisation. Peter Lang (32 Hochfeldstrasse, Postfach 746, CH-3000 Berne 9, Switzerland. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 - Fax: 3761727 - email: info@peterlang.com - Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). 2008, 546 pp, €60-60. ISBN 978-3-03911-214-2.
Characterised by alternating processes of economic integration and disintegration, the twentieth century was not a totally peaceful experience for the small countries of Europe. Apparently more vulnerable to global change, the small countries were forced to strike the right balance between political independence and economic dependence. They astonishingly achieved this in a very effective manner. Combining essays from the thirteenth congress of the 'Association Internationale de l'Histoire Economique', this book analyses the policies and strategies used by governments, industries and companies in ten small European countries, chosen in terms of their dependence on foreign markets and the duality of their economic structure (companies looking to export and companies restricting themselves to the domestic market). Fascinated by the 'ability of small countries to somehow cope with economic dependence', twenty-four economic historians studied the impact on small countries of changes in the international economy, along with the impact on strategic freedom, the way they solved domestic conflicts between companies and the interaction between the strategies pursued by companies, economic politics and international changes. Solid analysis that shoots holes in the prejudice that more problems means less results.
(TBa)
*** BALIHAR SANGHERA, SARAH AMSLER, TATIANA YARKOVA (Eds.): Theorising Social Change in Post-Soviet Countries. Critical Approaches. Peter Lang (see above). 2007, 546 pp, €67-60. ISBN 978-3-03910-329-4.
In their search for a more rigorous, critical and broader approach to social change, the authors of this book - sociologists from Western and Eastern Europe who specialise in studying post-Soviet societies - look at the culture, politics and economics of post-Soviet societies based on the two great sociological approaches. Firstly, the neo-liberal approach envisaging post-Soviet countries converging with Western capitalist countries and how to achieve this; and then the neo-conservative approach defending traditionalism and defining post-Soviet countries from their own history, with a desire to resist the hegemony of the Western model. These two diametrically opposed approaches demonstrate an 'inability to fully grasp the pace of change in diverse societies that until twenty years ago were largely isolated from external cultural influence' and are collected together here in a new analysis method that takes account of five characteristics of the studied societies: historical and social anchoring, cultural and identity sensibility, the influence of legislation, the influence of language and, finally, political and economic aspects, in order to transcend the limits of the two traditional approaches and establish a 'critical social science', ending the division of labour between Western and Eastern Europe.
(TBa)