Brazil is threatening to ignore U.S. patents in retaliation for WTO violations over cotton subsidies.
Brazil May Target U.S. IP To Retaliate for WTO Violation
February 10, 2010
Share this post
3 Comments

Law Bytes
Episode 278: Ben Waldman on Gander Social and the Challenges of Building a Sovereign Social Network
byMichael Geist

August 10, 2026
Michael Geist
Search Results placeholder
Michael Geist on Substack
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 278: Ben Waldman on Gander Social and the Challenges of Building a Sovereign Social Network
Canada’s Campus Antisemitism Crisis: National Survey Finds Antisemitism Nearly Everywhere and University Responses Nowhere
Why the Answers to Hateful Content Online are Hiding in the Platforms’ Own Rules
From CCH to ChatGPT: How Canadian Copyright Law Played the Key Role in Deciding a Leading AI Training Data Case in India
Starting Over: Court Filing Confirms the CRTC’s Streamer Contribution Decisions Are Dead With a Full Online Streaming Act Reset to Come

Subsidies = market disturbance. Ignoring IP = Robin Hood-tactics
And this somehow seems to fit Brazil well, seeing that they are poorer and thus can have something to win by playing Robin Hood cards.
one and the same
I’m confused Simon.
Can you explain how these two are not one and the same.
With subsidies you are taking money from somewhere, (Presumably from some source that you think can afford it.) and giving it to a recipient whom you feel is in some what deserving of it.
Leaving Wall Street and the Auto industry aside as exceptions that give much money to the un-needy, aren’t subsidies in general a form of “Robin Hood tactic”
WTO approved
Robin Hood tactics or not, these tactics were approved by WTO, who awarded Brazil the right to retaliate in this way.