In response to Richard Labelle's feedback on the Financial Times
article:
I think the legitimation of recycled PC's by donor government agencies
to get past antagonism towards "dumping" practices felt by third world
governments is a valid strategy, but does not address the fact that
these governments may have a pint when thinking strategically.
Perhaps if Donor agencies bought up or backwards engineered patents on
technologies that are becoming "cloned" and so generic in developed
country markets, then they could provide free licenses on these patents
to firms in the developing world that have a focus on providing
products and services to the low end of the market, possibly with a
philanthropic emphasis. This would allow low cost applications of
existing technologies to be developed in low invcome, low infrastructure
contexts. This would also constitute a true "transfer of technology"
since control of such products would reside within the recipient nation
in terms of further research and development. The information generated
from the monitoring and evaluation of such activities would also
constitute commercially valuable market research for companies wishing
to "explore", "exploit" or "develop such markets" so could be used as an
incentive to lever companies in to donating patents in the first place.
Presumably the applications produced would be appropriate, with none of
the stigma and strategic drwabacks associated with "hand me down"
technologies.
Large Donor agencies would have the resources and profile to carry off
such a project, and it would strengthen the case for intellectual
property rights if they were applied flexibly and constructively in such
a fashion.
Any more thoughts on this?
Best regards,
Daniel Taghioff
School of Oriental and African Studies
London
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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