If New Zealand has already granted patents applicable in New Zealand, it cannot rule them out unilaterally, without compensating the patent holder (otherwise New Zealand could be attacked in an international court of justice, and in both cases it could cost a lot to the NZ government). My opinion is that those existing patents will remain valid until expiration, as long as the patent fees are paid (and NZ may refuse then to renew the grant).
But NZ could raise the yearly fees for those existing patents (in some limited measure, otherwise NZ could also face a trial in an international court of commerce), to accelerate their expiration. It would place the NZ government and many organizations at risks for new businesses if those patents are no longer honored. Because the patent grant is effectively a contract between the governement and the patent holder where NZ has accepted to defend the patent claims. But now there may be problems for media producers that sell products in New Zealand : MPEG products will not be sellable there because they will have to be reencoded specifically for New Zealand. But large online media distributors will find a parade, they already have all the tools to reencode MPEG medias to other formats (e.g. Ogg formats). For video streams it is however very complex, because they are typically encoded with dedicated hardware now, for supporting large bands and high volumes. May be Google will try to promote WebM as a "free" alternative (but WebM is also attacked by MPEG patent owners in other countries). There are not a lot of open alternatives for now that can compress efficiently high-quality HD contents, except that the MPEG or AVI envelope formats will not be usable (the Matroshka envelope format preferfed by Google for the WebM content should be fine). But the most complex situation will be to adapt the hardware appliances specifically for New Zealand, with specific firmwares... And many existing appliances (HDTV sets, routers, home mediaservers, game consoles, smartphones, ...) will stop working with medias encoded in these free formats if they do not support it already. Customers will support the cost of migration by buying new hardwares (in a way similar to the migration from analog TV to digital TV, or from GSM networks to G2, or G3 and now G4 networks...). There should then be a plan on several years to facilitate the progressive migration at reduced cost for end-users. This plan should cover the full duration of existing patents, so there's no need to terminate those existing patent grants prematurely. It could take 10 years to complete. 2013/8/28 James R. Lawrence, III <jlawre...@coatsandbennett.com> > Is there anyone from New Zealand on the list who can speak to whether the > ban applies to patents that were previously granted or whether it is only > prospective in nature? If the former, does it raise takings and just > compensation issues under New Zealand law? > > James > > -----Original Message----- > From: osdc-list-boun...@redhat.com [mailto:osdc-list-boun...@redhat.com] > On Behalf Of Robin Muilwijk > Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 4:02 PM > To: osdc-list@redhat.com > Subject: Re: [Osdc-list] Hot topic: New Zealand bans software patents! > > > > On 28-8-2013 21:57, Bill Farrow wrote: > > On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Robin Muilwijk > > <robin.muilw...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> It does raise questions though; what about existing patents? And, > >> what about companies, might they relocate, so they can still patent > their software? > > > > Every country has their own patent laws, and companies must patent > > their invention in each country in which they wish to protect their > > "idea". So a company based in NZ would still be able to patent > > software in the USA and litigate in the US if they thought it > > worthwhile. > > > > Bill > > > > > Thanks Bill, I didn't know that. With your point on providing a level of > protection also, it sure is an interesting development to follow. > > -- Robin > > _______________________________________________ > Sign-up for our weekly newsletter: http://opensource.com/email-newsletter > > Osdc-list mailing list > Osdc-list@redhat.com > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list > > _______________________________________________ > Sign-up for our weekly newsletter: http://opensource.com/email-newsletter > > Osdc-list mailing list > Osdc-list@redhat.com > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list >
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