The director-general of the Intellectual Property Department has been hounding pirates longer than the Spaniards tracked Henry Morgan, although not as successfully. (Photo by Jiraporn kuhakan)The director-general of the Intellectual Property Department has been hounding pirates longer than the Spaniards tracked Henry Morgan, although not as successfully. Whitney and friends spent the meagre profits from legal cotton gin sales on patent infringement lawsuits against hundreds of pirates. In America, just eight years after Cartwright’s loom got a patent, Eli Whitney invented and patented the cotton gin (“gin” being a shortened form of “engine”). While each of these has its own legal definition, all of them are grouped — supposedly enforced by clear laws about intellectual property and a robust justice system.

Source: Bangkok Post August 07, 2016 06:11 UTC