Monday Bits-- Colbert's Sister Going To Congress? Will Nestlé And Wall Street Ever Be Held To Account?

PPP shows Elizabeth Colbert Busch opening a more significant lead (16% as of this afternoon) over disgraced ex-Governor Mark Sanford in the first district congressional special election. Voting is on May 7th in the carefully gerrymandered red district, who's voters gave Obama 40.2% in November, while right next door in the 6th district-- into which the state's racist legislature dumped every African-American voter they could find-- Obama won 70.9%. Although John Boehner endorsed Sanford on April 9, less than a week later the NRCC, which he controls, announced that due to Sanford's on-going behavior issues, it would no longer support him or invest in his race, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars being poured into the district by the DCCC and their House Majority PAC. The new DCCC as:



I don't know if Colbert Busch will wind up voting with Republicans half the time. but it's what I suspect from watching the campaign. Still, that's better than voting with Republicans 100% of the time, which is what we can expect from Sanford. She's already come out in favor of marriage equality and her approach to Chained CPI was pretty good as well: “Not only does President Obama’s plan fail to put our finances back in order, it would cut benefits for our seniors, which is wrong. I believe that our seniors earned their Social Security by putting money away every single paycheck for a lifetime-- knowing that they could count on Social Security when they retired... Simply put, Social Security doesn’t contribute to the deficit, and politicians should keep their hands off the trust fund."

Our Contest Ended Today

Nick Ruiz (FL) wound up with 50 donors so he won the $1,000 PAC check from Blue America. Daylin Leach (PA) had 40 donors, Carl Sciortino (MA) had 38 donors, Andy Hounshell (OH) 31 donors and Ken Sanders (TX) 29. The average donor contributed approximately $53. And the Saving Social Security page now has $9,140 on it. We randomly selected one contributor to thank with the 311 platinum award disc. And that winner is Joyce Bullock from Glenside, PA, who contributed $12.


Wall Street And It's DC Allies Will Enslave Us All... If We let Them

Jeffrey Sachs isn't a radical. He's a kind of mainstream economics professor at Columbia University. The audio on this video was shot April 17 at a conference, "Fixing the Banking System for Good." It sounds like he's almost come around to a less corporate/establishment point of view about how corrupt and criminal Wall Street is, even to the point of advocating out loud the need for "separating the politicians from the (Wall Street) crooks, but maybe that's so close together that they can't actually be separated; maybe it's just the same community." Maybe?

I meet a lot of these people on Wall Street on a regular basis right now. I’m going to put it very bluntly. I regard the moral environment as pathological. And I’m talking about the human interactions that I have. I’ve not seen anything like this, not felt it so palpably. These people are out to make billions of dollars and nothing should stop them from that They have no responsibility to pay taxes, they have no responsibility to their clients, they have no responsibility to people… counterparties in transactions. They are tough, greedy, aggressive, and feel absolutely out of control, in a quite literal sense. And they have gamed the system to a remarkable extent and they have a docile president, a docile White House and a docile regulatory system that absolutely can’t find its voice. It’s terrified of these companies.

...[T]he financial markets are the number one campaign contributors in the U.S. system now. We have a corrupt politics to the core, I’m afraid to say… and both parties are up to their necks in this. This has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. It really doesn’t have anything to do with right wing or left wing, by the way. The corruption, as far as I can see, [is] everywhere...

And Speaking Of Antisocial, Nihilistic Greed... Nestlé

Nestlé has been claiming for some time that it invented the medical uses of herbs that have been used medicinally for centuries. And they want patents.

The world’s largest food company, Nestlé, is seeking a patent on the use of Nigella sativa to prevent food allergies, claiming the plant seed and extract when they are used as a food ingredient or drug. Commonly known as habbat al-barakah in Arabic, and frequently called “black seed,” “black cumin” or “fennel flower” in English, Nigella sativa is an ancient food and medicinal crop.

The Swiss giant’s claims appear invalid, as traditional uses of Nigella sativa clearly anticipate Nestlé’s patent application, and developing country scholarship has already validated these traditional uses and further described, in contemporary scientific terms, the very medicinal properties of black seed that Nestlé seeks to claim as its own “invention."

It was already being used in King Tut's time, when the Swiss were still sheltering and shivering around open fires in Alpine caves, gnawing on bones.

In claiming use of Nigella sativa against food allergies, Nestlé’s scientists have not innovated beyond what was already known in traditional medicine from Egypt to India and beyond. Moreover, prior to Nestlé’s claim, researchers in those countries used formal scientific methods to demonstrate the efficacy of traditional use of black seed to treat allergy symptoms.

Those simple facts, however, have not deterred Nestlé from advancing its claim. In November 2011, Nestlé’s patent application in Europe was published. Other national (or regional) applications may exist but have yet to be published. Recently, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) released a search of scientific literature related to the application, and found problems with Nestlé’s claim to have made an invention, citing some of the same research that is noted in this report. The PCT opinion, however, is not binding on national patent offices, and Nestlé may submit modified claims. Thus, while the opinion is a blow to Nestlé’s application, it doesn’t mean that the claims are dead.

Like well-known biopiracy cases before it, such as patents on uses of neem, Nestlé’s unashamed attempt to appropriate traditional knowledge reflects an ethical lapse and shows profound problems with the company’s intellectual property practices. It can be hoped that Nestlé’s claim will be turned down by patent authorities, but the fact that patent claims over traditional knowledge that preceded it have result in patents shows that intellectual property offices sometime share industry’s disrespect for traditional knowledge. Indeed the fact that a corporation with the resources of Nestlé would pursue a patent on such an obviously pilfered “invention” at all is indicative of the need to improve patent review standards so that such applications are not worth filing in the first place.

Fighting for people over profits is how the blog SumOfUs introduced Nestlé’s ambitious claims.

In a paper published last year, Nestlé scientists claimed to “discover” what much of the world has known for millennia: that nigella sativa extract could be used for “nutritional interventions in humans with food allergy."

But instead of creating an artificial substitute, or fighting to make sure the remedy was widely available, Nestlé is attempting to create a nigella sativa monopoly and gain the ability to sue anyone using it without Nestlé’s permission. Nestlé has filed patent applications-- which are currently pending-- around the world.

Prior to Nestlé's outlandish patent claim, researchers in developing nations such as Egypt and Pakistan had already published studies on the same curative powers Nestlé is claiming as its own. And Nestlé has done this before-- in 2011, it tried to claim credit for using cow’s milk as a laxative, despite the fact that such knowledge had been in Indian medical texts for a thousand years.

Don’t let Nestlé turn a traditional cure into a corporate cash cow.

We know Nestlé doesn’t care about ethics. After all, this is the corporation that poisoned its milk with melamine, purchases cocoa from plantations that use child slave labor, and launched a breast milk substitute campaign in the 1970s that contributed to the suffering and deaths of thousands of babies from poor communities.

Patent Reform? Really?

In the context of a big ideological battle between those who think government can be a force for societal good (New Deal Democrats, progressives) and those who believe in the Law of the Jungle (fascists, Republicans, conservatives), Americans Outside-the-Beltway are hoping-- by large margins-- that President Obama will step up to the plate tomorrow and do something big to turn around the economy. Republicans Inside-the-Beltway, not really giving a damn what Americans Outside-the-Beltway think and-- knowing full well that the millions of dollars spent on overtly and covertly fascist propaganda by billionaire crackpots like the Koch Brothers, Charles Schwab, the DeVos family and other extreme right billionaires can persuade at least 40% of voters that, for example, arbeit macht frei-- they are determined to obstruct and sabotage anything President Obama proposes that will alleviate any of the country's worst problems. Republicans and Bush may have created those problems but they have been determined since the day he was elected not just to pin them on President Obama but to prevent him from doing anything to ameliorate them.

Tuesday the Senate was back from its summer vacation. Miss McConnell, who declared long ago that his number one priority for Obama's 4 years who be to make sure he is a one-term president. He and his caucus have blocked every effort to help the American people overcome the effects of Republican policies. He got up on the floor, hissing and lisping that he and his caucus are as determined as ever to obstruct and obstruct and obstruct. "[E]very one of us, I'm sure, is aware of the fact that many Americans are not only frustrated with the state of our economy, but also with the state of their government. I don't think any one of us is under any illusion that the American people were particularly eager to see us come back."

Well, as much as many Americans loathe these partisan hacks and evil-doers, they would like to see some action to create infrastructure jobs, as Obama says he intends to propose tomorrow. Miss McConnell and his cronies are having none of that, of course. As far as they're concerned President Obama's proposals are DOA:

"I'm...certain that, taken as whole, they'll represent more of the same failed approach that's only made things worse over the past few years, and resulted in even fewer jobs than when he started. Over the weekend, the President tested a few of the lines I expect we'll hear on Thursday. His central message, evidently, is that anyone who doesn't rubber stamp his economic agenda is putting politics above country. With all due respect, Mr. President, there's a much simpler reason for opposing your economic proposals that has nothing to do with politics: they don't work."

Miss McConnell wasn't done yet. He let the ever-compromising president know that, predictably, the scrapping of regulations to reduce smog pollution would only make the far right feel more entitled to scrap all regulations. McConnell wasn't giving him any credit or even meeting him halfway: "[Y]ou don't lift a single regulation and suddenly claim to be Margaret Thatcher," he said archly, opening his closet door just a teensy-weensy little crack.

Tuesday, though, something did pass: a cloture vote to shut down the right-wing filibuster to prevent patent reform. It isn't a big sweeping piece of legislation that most Americans care about or even understand. Here's Austan Goolsbee explaining what it's all about and how the Obama administration is trying to solve it:



In the end the filibuster was shut down 93-5, only teabaggers Jim DeMint (R-SC), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) obstructing even this. (Marco Rubio was out.) The only other vote Tuesday was to confirm Bernice Bouie Donald, of Tennessee, as a judge for the Sixth Circuit Court. After months of foot dragging, it passed 96-2, only DeMint and Vitter voting against her, just because that's what they do.

Back to patent reform again. According to IT World, the new legislation isn't likely to even do the trick in terms of the software industry's actual needs. There's been a whole lot of suing going on.

There has been a lot of hullabaloo about the validity of software patents, what with everybody seemingly suing everybody in the mobile sector these days.

It has also been noted that some of the companies who actually have instigated some of these lawsuits have, at one point or another, actually had public positions against software patents.

Microsoft, curiously, was one of those opponents. Just after software patents were found to be enforceable in the 1980s, CEO Bill Gates wrote a memo arguing that such patents would be the worse thing in the world for a company like Microsoft:

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then they have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want."

Of course, those were different times, when Microsoft was young and carefree and their own patent portfolio was meager. Contrast those ideas from Gates to those of Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith in a 2007 CNET article:

"Protection for software patents and other intellectual property is essential to maintaining the incentives that encourage and underwrite technological breakthroughs. In every industry, patents provide the legal foundation for innovation. The ensuing legal disputes may be messy, but protection is no less necessary, even so."

In other words, software patents are bad, until you have enough of your own to start setting up your own lawsuits.

I could level off some of the usual scathing "Microsoft is evil" remarks that one would expect from an open source user and advocate, except it would be inappropriate because nearly every other company does business this way.

This morning while I was waiting for my daughter to get ready for school, I read an interesting blog entry on litigious business practices using what's known as occupational licensing. The main thrust of the article described how many state and municipal food inspection and licensing processes are being abused by competitors to keep new businesses from interfering. Street food vendors, for instance, are among those business groups that keep getting targeted by Draconian enforcement of existing (and sometimes brand spanking new) regulations.

It's not just the food industry. Many of the situations the article described were simply egregious:

"My home state of Ohio fined a parent $10,000 for competing with the Cleveland Bar Association. The CBA filed a complaint that the concerned parent represented his autistic son without a CBA-approved attorney when he sued his school board because of the poor quality of his son's education.

"In California you can't help people devastated by forest fires unless you're part of a politically connected contracting crew. The government went so far as to send out a press release during a massive fire warning unlicensed workers that doing things like removing debris is a serious felony subjecting them to $10,000 fines and 16 months in prison.

"Monks were threatened with crippling fines and jail for selling wood boxes. The funeral industry didn't like the competition."

So again, it's pretty hard to single out a company like Microsoft when all they are doing is playing the same stupid game nearly every other company is playing: abusing the legal system to get what they want.

And history is about to repeat itself. Google, which has the oft-cited motto "Don't be evil," has been very loud about their opposition against software patents. But after buying Motorola Mobility (and presumably getting their hands on some software patents), how long will it be until Google initiates their own big patent infringement lawsuits? Many will argue that it will be in defense, sure, but will there ever be a point when someone will just keep making a stand?

Critics of software patents argue that it would be great if all the extra legal overhead of this litigation could just go away. But if the bottom line says that it's cheaper to just hire better lawyers rather than suffer the potential risks of young upstart competitors stealing even more revenue and customers, then businesses will opt for the former every time.

This is why lawmakers only make half-hearted efforts to examine patent reform. They may listen to the latest big company that complains (like Google), but if and when that company moves on to pursuing their own litigation, why bother listening? Not to mention lobbying pressure from all the lawyers who are getting paid quite well to pursue these cases on behalf of their clients.

It's a depressing situation all the way around, in all business sectors, at all levels of government. Litigation is a business expense that many businesses are willing to put time, effort, and money into if it can give them an edge over a competitor.

Can software patents ever be reformed? Possibly, if enough lawsuits lose and companies realize that there's no percentage in the game.

It won't be an ethical decision that drives reform, sadly, but a financial one.