Transitioning from the industrial to the information age, many global patent laws function as deterrent to innovation rather than as incentive by now . But the traditional approach is not just loosing touch with a changing world. The patenting of knowledge in areas like genetics and biotechnology, as well as software, renders it a tangible threat for the future of our society. Today's seed monopolies and costly legal disputes about often trivial patents already demonstrate how it is both innovators and consumers who have to pay the price. We want freer and fairer markets without the limitations of current patent law, which therefore needs to be reformed or replaced with an approach that actually makes sense, instead of one that further stifles innovation.
In general, an increasing dismantling of monopolies and opening markets are the clear political objective for our party. Patents as government-guaranteed private-sector monopolies provide basically an artificial restriction to the general welfare, which requires constant review and justification.Even if the patenting of industrial goods in the past is generally seenas a success story (neither provable nor refutable), the social and economic conditions of invention in the post-industrial and globalized society have fundamentally changed by now.The increasing international competition also leads to an increasingly misappropriated use of the patent system, where you often can not see a compensation for the society any more. We therefore want to put a halt to the increasing abuse of patents. Patenting of trivialities or even the blocking of progress by patents should be prevented at all costs.This also applies in particular to the field of the pharmaceutical industry. The high demand for money and the monopolistic structure of the market require a reorganization to make use of the resources of society in a reasonable manner and not waste them through blockades and for the benefit of individuals. Patents on pharmaceuticals also have some impact that is ethically highly reprehensible.
Economic success in the information society is no longer dependent on technological inventions, but on the development of knowledge and information. The effort to regulate these factors now via the patent system is diametrically opposed to our demand for freedom of knowledge and human culture.
Patents should definitely never be given for things that are trivial, non-substantial, computer programs, business models, or anything unethical. They impede the development of an information society, privatize common goods without reimbursement or neccesity and have no potential for innovation in the original sense. Small and medium IT companies throughout Europe illustrate that patents on software are no prerequisite to economic success.
Agriculture should conserve, rather than endanger natural resources and ecological balance. Seeds, whether bred genetically or conventionally to be resistant against pesticide, may cause particular harm for the environment when they are introduced to virgin ecological systems. Plants bred for resistance will only work in conjunction with specifically adjusted pesticides. Thus, farmers are often forced to use specific pesticides produced by monopolistic companies. This constraint will lead to a direct dependence on the owners of rights of seeds and pesticides. We reject this forced combination of seeds and pesticides and their protection through patents.
Trade agreements with developing countries shall take into account their structural and economical weaknesses by offering them favorable conditions for mutual trade. These advantagous conditions shall especially apply for the trade with agricultural products and raw materials. There also need to be special adjustments made in the area of patent regulations. We PIRATES want to champion this cause.
We PIRATES strive for a revision of the TRIPS Agreement in favour of reducing exclusive rights on immaterial goods, especially in patent and copyright regulations, in accordance with our programmatic goals. The same shall apply to other trade agreements which include similar or even more far-reaching regulations on patents and copyright (TRIPS+). We will only give our consent to new trade agreements, if they do not contain regulations about immaterial goods which are contrary to our convictions on the matter.
H) Degradation of Private Monopolies and Opening Markets (additional points proposed for the PPDE draft)
* The EU and other industrialised countries should not force (e.g. at the occasion of the negotiation of trade agreements) less developed countries to accept IP provisions that are likely to be detrimental to the essential needs of health, education and development opportunities. They should not bully countries either that lawfully use the safeguards of existing agreements for public health or any other objectives (e.g. compulsory licenses of medicines).
* We oppose the frequent abuses of patent privileges, such as evergreening practices (introducing spurious changes to medicines with expiring patent protection), paying for delay (to pay a compensation to a generic producer in order to delay the marketing of a potential generic competitor, the consequent reduction in the price of the medicine).
* We support the establishmet and funding of alternatives to monopolistic incentives to pharmaceutical innovation (patents, test data protection), such as those that delink the reward of the innovation from the price of the product (prizes, health innovation funds, patent pools, international treaty for biomedical research, etc)
1.11, 1.12 & 1.13 agricultural policy, social policy and economic and financial policy Remove everything on agricultural policy, social policy and economic and financial policy.
1.14.1.6 Trade Agreements Between Trading Partners With Huge Economic Disparities remove paragraph