Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of diagrams and tables
- List of abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 Patent offices and the global governance of knowledge
- 2 Labyrinths and catacombs: Patent office procedure
- 3 The rise of patent offices
- 4 The Sun and its planets: The European Patent Office and national offices
- 5 The USPTO and JPO
- 6 The age of Trilaterals and the spirit of cooperation
- 7 The jewel in the crown: India's Patent Office
- 8 The dragon and the tiger: China and South Korea
- 9 Joining the patent office conga line: Brazil
- 10 Islands and regions in the patent stream
- 11 Reclaiming the patent social contract
- 12 Patent administration sovereignty: Nodal solutions for small countries, developing countries
- Index
- References
1 - Patent offices and the global governance of knowledge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of diagrams and tables
- List of abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 Patent offices and the global governance of knowledge
- 2 Labyrinths and catacombs: Patent office procedure
- 3 The rise of patent offices
- 4 The Sun and its planets: The European Patent Office and national offices
- 5 The USPTO and JPO
- 6 The age of Trilaterals and the spirit of cooperation
- 7 The jewel in the crown: India's Patent Office
- 8 The dragon and the tiger: China and South Korea
- 9 Joining the patent office conga line: Brazil
- 10 Islands and regions in the patent stream
- 11 Reclaiming the patent social contract
- 12 Patent administration sovereignty: Nodal solutions for small countries, developing countries
- Index
- References
Summary
The patent ocean: Kiribati
It is a little surprising that one can apply for a patent in Kiribati. More surprising though is that there are twenty or so mainly pharmaceutical patents registered in its patent office. No-one in Kiribati much cares about the few patent files languishing in a filing cabinet since, if the predictions about climate change are right, they are destined for Davey Jones' locker. Almost all of Kiribati is less than two metres above sea level and so its inhabitants are experiencing what happens when an ocean begins to rise up and wash over settled land. The furthest thing from anyone's mind on Kiribati is pharmaceutical patents and yet someone could be bothered to apply for them.
If one had to guess where one could not lodge a patent, Kiribati would have been a plausible choice. Given another guess one might opt for some deeply war-torn country such as Iraq or Afghanistan. In the case of Iraq it is a case of ‘nice try, but no cigar’. Prior to the US invasion of Iraq, there was a patent law in place. After the US invasion, the Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer, promulgated an order that brought aspects of Iraq's patent law up to international standards. Patenting activity in the Iraq Patent Office (PO) is not great. The cigar is tantalizingly in reach with Afghanistan.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Global Governance of KnowledgePatent Offices and their Clients, pp. 1 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010