NGOs can set themselves the objective of campaigning in a hard-cop--soft-cop fashion for reform of patent or other intellectual property offices. The soft cop NGOs can take their seats on policy committeeswithin the walls of the patent office and seek to push for changes in patent administration that: (1) demand resistance to the strategic litigation games of the multinationals; (2) demand effective application of the tests of patentability in the public interest; (3) demand that human rights, such as rights to health and indigenous rights, are taken seriously in patent determinations; and (4) inisist on denial of patents to companies which do not adequately document the know-how needed to work the invention properly once the patent has expired. The fourth point is important so that others can exploit the information in tha patent that society has received in exchange for the grant of patent privelige and so new generations of inventors can stand on their shoulders. The hard cop NGOs can attack the patent office (and indeed the soft cop NGOs) from outside the walls, accusing them of regulatory capture. Experience in other domains with combating regulatory capture by big business, for example with environmental regulation, suggests that persistence over a long period with this strategy of hard cop and soft cop NGOs competing for politcal influence is what produces public-regarding reform.

P.205, Information Feudalism