That’s always my goal, is not to put myself in the patent business or another business; it’s to make government better, to show them that people actually care about this information. With the patent database, the patent commissioner actually told me he just didn’t think ordinary Americans would care about this stuff. Put it online; millions of people started using it.
[Anuj Srinivas] In some cases, this information for example, is available to the public; but for a fee, for instance. How do you deal with that when it comes to the government agency that makes money off of it?
[Carl Malamud] Well, revenue is very important for any government agency, any NGO. In the case of the patent office, they were making $40 million a year selling patents. You know what, the whole purpose of patents—This is the only database that’s specifically called out in the United States Constitution. It’s not there to be sold. They can make money doing other things, and they can actually sell the data. The question is, once I’ve bought it, am I able to republish it in a way that makes it better and more useful? I don’t even mind if there’s a fee for service for information. The question is are you then allowed, without a license, to use that information, make it better, inform your fellow citizens, do something with it?
[Anuj Srinivas] Correct, that’s true. Some of your work here—Your work has also extended to India over the last couple of years. As I understand it, you’re currently, for instance, in a legal battle with the Bureau of Indian Standards. Could you talk to us a little bit about this, and how it started from the beginning?
[Carl Malamud] There’s a couple kinds of laws, right, legal materials. Edicts of government, there’s acts of a parliament, there’s government regulations; but safety standards are some of the most important laws in our modern world. The National Building Code of India, the Standards for Textile Machinery that keeps workers safe, or the safe application of pesticides. All these Indian standards are noticed in the official gazettes. They have the force of law. In many cases, you may not sell products in India unless they are certified; and they may not be certified by BIS unless they meet standards. And they’re all government publications.
Despite that, there is not only a copyright notice, there is a notice that you may not copy this stuff without our permission; and they sell it. The National Building Code of India costs 14,000 rupees in India. That’s a lot of money for a book that every engineering student in India needs to study. If you buy it in a
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