Reply #20: here's an intriguing idea . . . [View All]

[OneBlueSky]

from an article in the Daily Brew that I posted in the Economics forum awhile back . . .

"The idea is simple. Instead of threatening our trading "partners" with tariffs and sanctions, threaten the multinational corporations who are setting up shop in countries that allow the wholesale theft of American intellectual property. If IBM wants to move a million programming jobs to India, that's fine. But if India doesn't respect the intellectual property rights of our imports, then why should the US respect the intellectual property rights of companies who use Indian labor to produce goods for export? You want to program your software in India? Fine. The price for doing so is that your copyrights, patents, and trademarks become unenforceable in the US. Anything IBM makes in India can be copied for free, and if IBM doesn't like it, they can damn well program the code somewhere else. If China wants to turn a blind eye to manufactures who produce counterfeit goods, so be it. But if Levi Strauss wants to set up a blue jeans factory there, then the Levi trademark falls into the public domain. Were this to become US policy, the outsourcing of US jobs to nations that steal US intellectual property would dry up faster than you can say "Most Favored Nation Status."

you can see the rest of the article here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=114&topic_id=5844