Message from Hannah

You are not alone, Hannah. I am with you.

So many people have been telling me just how frustrated they are with the current political situation in our country. Some have told me that they regretted voting for change because of the political instability now and would prefer returning to their old style of voting - vote for stability and forget about having a stronger opposition and greater check and balance. I shudder at the thought of this!

One needs to remember the reason why we are seeing such great resistance for change is simply because there is much to lose for those who have been in power for so long. For decades there has been so much abuse of power, unchecked misuse of public funds and plain dirty corruption. With a stronger opposition now, they stand to lose their illegal sources of income and some may even be charged and sent to prison if they are found guilty.

With this in mind, they will fight at all costs to reclaim back power and to ensure they can continue to steal public funds from the people for their own enrichment. We are not just dealing with differences in politics; we are combating evil forces who will not rest till they secure back their powers and illegal sources of income.

Sometimes I feel equally frustrated and disillusioned about the political situation too. Sometimes I lie awake thinking of how to effect change in this land. Some days I cry while driving in between meetings thinking of what's left for the future generation in this land if we give up now.

I have endured much verbal attack from political enemies, accusation after accusation of me not doing anything for my constituents and etc. No one truly understands the resistance we face daily in discharging our duties except for my fellow PR assemblymen.

Robert Kennedy once said ‘*Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator and change has its enemies.*’ Our enemies are resisting change but we must stand firm and continue to push for a competent, accountable and transparent government.

At the end of each day, as I lay myself to sleep, I ask God for strength, wisdom and protection to face the next. I look forward to the end of the term when I can tell the people of Subang Jaya that I have remained clean and have not stolen any of the taxpayers' funds.

As reminded by Raja Petra in his blog "*Please continue your struggle to make Malaysia a better place for our future generation. This country belongs to them and it is for them that we struggle.*" All hope is not lost. Come the next election, vote out the corrupt once and for all. Hang in there supporters and friends, the best is yet to come!

I bet you it's UMNOputra

Can't be so sure that this chap above supports the Opposition. My guts says that it is from the wannabe of UMNOputra planted in gatherings in the recent clashes in Batu Burok, Kuala Terengganu, just like the cybertroopers employed by UMNO attacking blogs all over. Why do I say that? Simply because KayJu loves the rempits. And the rempit will go all out to show allegiance to UMNO. Secondly they are always around to disrupt Opposition ceramah and gatherings.

So these are possibilities that points to UMNOputra. If UMNO intend to clean their very dirty image as a gangster party then, there should be a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate this ruthless act of treason.

God bless Malaysia

Negaraku, tanah tumpahnya darahku,
Rakyat hidup, bersatu dan maju,
Rahmat bahagia, Tuhan kurniakan,
Raja kita, selamat bertakhta.
Rahmat bahagia, Tuhan kurniakan,
Raja kita, selamat bertakhta.

Malaysia, my beloved land. It is indeed a joy and honour to live in this country which I am proud of. It is indeed great to see the achievement of every individual to see the Malaysia flag to fly high and the national anthem play in anything and everything we do. It is a joy to see Nichol David became world champion in Squash. It is a joy to see of Badminton pairs of Koo Kien Kiat and Tan Boon Heong win championships. It is a joy to see Moorthy and another conquered the Everest. It is a joy to see our Malaysia U23 wins the finals in football recently. It is all the more joy to see the exchange of hugs and love between people acknowledging one another's achievement.

It is indeed my hope for this Merdeka, that Malaysia will continue not only enjoying the crops of our harvest and the prosperity of our economy but to see this country be united as one Malaysia Race called Malaysian not divided by language, colour and belief. They will see Malaysia first and enjoy being Malaysian not Malay, Chinese, Indian or the other racial group. It is indeed nice to hear the leaders in this country to declare in unison on a Malaysian identity and not harping on racial or religious lines.

It is indeed my hope that this country will see a more fairer proportion of our economy. That there would be new policies introduced that all will benefit both bumiputera and non-bumiputra. For this is our mother land that we love and cherish.

It is indeed my hope that the Constitution and Parliamentary laws and it's regulations are respected and followed by it's citizen. That nobody is above the law and all are subjected to the laws of this land. For this government will rule under the laws founded in our Constitution and convention.

It is indeed my hope that those in government will governed this country with wisdom and knowledge to see Malaysia through in difficult time. Corruption and abuse of powers must not show it's ugly head and it must be rooted out in our systems and thought. It is my hope too that the Judiciary will be independent and will judged and interpret according to the tenets of our law.

It is indeed my hope to see the country is protected from any form of extremism and terrorism whether it is political or racial or religion. That all parties will see the welfare of all Malaysians and not just their own people. It will be my greatest hope that all will see a Malaysia first and will fight for the Malaysia race and not just shouting Merdeka seven times in Parliament house.

Malaysia cannot be seen as 'Bolehland' where everything 'Boleh'. BUT Malaysia must be smart to divide the goat and the sheep, the black and the white, good and evil. This is my country which I will hope for till the day I die.

God bless Malaysia

Blessed Malaysia

Blessed 50th Birthday Malaysia, I shall pray to my Lord Jesus that country Malaysia be blessed. It will be honoured and be adored by all regardless of race and religion. I pray that the country will excel and be a force to be reckon with. I shall also pray that justice, integrity and righteousness will prevail against all evil doing and extremism and that the country be free from corruption and abuse of power. Let Malaysia be free.

Talk on Intellectual Property

The Need for Intellectual Property Protection for Inventors (a Seminar on Building Industry Solution’s To Sustainable Development held on 7th August 2007 in Putra World Trade Centre organized by CIDB Malaysia)

Tan Sri, Datuk, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must take this time to thank the organizers for allowing me to deliver this piece. This topic is of great importance but unfortunately there is a lack of awareness of its importance.

Introduction
We protect our tangible properties in our daily life. We install alarms in cars and houses to deter ‘breakins’. We lodge caveats in the land office when we purchase property to avoid unauthorized dealings with our property. We know the boundaries and limitations in protecting our tangible properties because we are able to see, touch and feel them.

So what is intellectual property then?
Almost everyone in society is a user and potential creator of intellectual property. Its protection, through a system of national and international rules called intellectual property rights, is necessary to provide incentives and financing for innovation and creation, which in turn leads to economic, cultural and social progress. Protection for intellectual property also encourages the production and dissemination of knowledge and a wide range of quality goods and services. As such Intellectual property rights add value for consumers and can provide a guarantee of where it comes from and its quality.

Intellectual property protection contributes to economic growth in both developed and developing countries by stimulating innovation, cultural diversity and technical development as part of a larger policy framework such as the establishment of the recent Northern Corridor Economic Region and the Iskandar Regional Development in Southern Johore. Thus, intellectual property rights can also be key tools for the alleviation of poverty through trade and business.

Intellectual property protection in Malaysia comprises that of patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyrights, geographical indications and layout designs of integrated circuits. In a nutshell, IP is a useful information or knowledge that is the property of the inventor/creator. Strong intellectual property protection is essential to the success and in some cases to the survival of thousands of owners of licenses around the world.

Why the need for IP protection?
Society provides legal rights over intellectual property to encourage the production of inventions and creative works that benefit society and to help innovators and creators make a living from their work through commercialisation. Without such protection Commercialisation becomes worthless and meaningless as it will be exploited by others. These rights, which can belong to individuals or organizations, are recognized by governments and the courts.

The system is designed to benefit society as a whole, in both developed and developing countries, striking a delicate balance to ensure that the needs of both the creator and the user are satisfied. This balance is maintained through checks within the intellectual property system itself and in the larger regulatory framework, to ensure that the system is sustainable and beneficial to all stakeholders.

Areas of Intellectual Property in a summary

Patents
The Patents Act 1983 and the Patents Regulations 1996 govern patent protection in Malaysia. Similar to legislations in other countries, an invention is patentable if it is new, involves an inventive step and is industrially applicable. In accordance with TRIPS, the Patent Act stipulates a protection period of 20 years from the date of filing of an application.

The owner of a patent has the right to exploit the patented invention, to assign or transmit the patent, and to conclude a licensed contract. In the event of infringement where any party that manufactures, uses, sells, or offers for sale patented technology, during the term of the patent and within the country that issued the patent, the patent holder may take a civil action under section 58 Patents Act 1983 for infringement which allows a remedy of an injunction and award of damages. Section 61(4) Patents Act 1983 provides other forms of remedy and as such the remedies above is non exhaustive.

Trade Marks
Trade mark protection is governed by the Trade Marks Act 1976 and the Trade Marks Regulations 1997. The Act provides protection for registered trade marks and service marks in Malaysia. Once registered, no person or enterprise other than its proprietor or authorised users may use them.

Infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees. It may occur when the "infringer", uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party. An owner of a trademark may commence legal proceedings against a party which infringes its registration. The period of protection is ten years, renewable for a period of every ten years thereafter. The proprietor of the trade mark or service mark has the right to deal or assign as well as to license its use.

There can be a Criminal Prosecution under the Trade Description Act 1972 as well as a civil action under the Trade Marks Act 1976 and under the common law tort of passing off. The remedy allowed would be an application for an Injunction, Damages or in lieu of damages, an account for profits, order for delivery up of offending matter or obliteration of the offending trade mark or sign or a declaration that the Defendant has infringed.

Industrial Design
Industrial design protection in Malaysia is governed by the Industrial Designs Act 1996 and Industrial Designs Regulations 1999. The Act provides the rights of registered industrial designs as that of a personal property capable of assignment and transmission by operation of the law. To be eligible for registration, industrial designs must be new and do not include a method of construction or design that is dictated solely by function. In addition, the design of the article must not be dependent upon the appearance of another article of which it forms an integral part.

Registered industrial designs are protected for an initial period of five years which may be extended for another two 5-year terms, providing a total protection period of 15 years.

Copyright
The Copyright Act 1987 provides comprehensive protection for copyrightable works. The Act outlines the nature of works eligible for copyright (which includes computer software), the scope of protection, and the manner in which the protection is accorded. There is no registration of copyright works.

Copyright protection in literary, musical or artistic works is for the duration of the life of the author and 50 years after his death. In sound recordings, broadcasts and films, copyright protection is for 50 years after the works are first published or made. The Act also provides protection for the performer's rights in a live performance which shall continue to subsist for fifty years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the live performance was given. A unique feature of the Act is the inclusion of provisions for its enforcement. A special team of officers is appointed to enforce the Act and empowered to enter premises suspected of having infringing copies and to search and seize infringing copies and contrivances.

International Laws and Treaties

Let’s look at some international memorandums, laws and treaties where Malaysia is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and a signatory to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris, on March 20, 1883, is an important and one of the first intellectual property treaties where Malaysia accede to the convention in January 1st,1989 and Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement about copyright, which was first adopted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886 where Malaysia accede to it in 1st October 1990.

In addition, Malaysia is also a signatory to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) signed under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO). TRIPS also specifies enforcement procedures, remedies, and dispute resolution procedures. Therefore, Malaysia's intellectual property laws are in conformance with international standards and provide adequate protection to both local and foreign investors.

Recently Malaysia acceded to the Patent Cooperation Treaty in August 16th 2006. This Treaty provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its Contracting States (137 countries as at 25th July 2007). A patent application filed under the PCT is called an international application or PCT application. It is a single filing of an international application is made with a Receiving Office (RO). It then results in a search performed by an International Searching Authority (ISA), accompanied with a written opinion regarding the patentability of the invention. It is optionally followed by a preliminary examination, performed by an International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA). Finally, the examination (if provided by national law) and grant procedures are handled by the relevant national or regional authorities. The PCT does not lead to the grant of an "international patent", which does not exist.

Other Memorandum, Treaties and Laws not signed by Malaysia are the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, Budapest Treaty on the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedure, Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration, Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks and some others not mentioned here

Conclusion
Technologies and creations that have touched and changed millions of lives would probably not exist today without the incentives provided by intellectual property rights. As such Intellectual Property protection has spurred the development of key technologies of the future.

My Thoughts

Many things happen in the last couple of months starting from March 30^th, I undergo a 2 ½ hours operation removing a recurred tumor in my femur bone. The good doctor removed almost 18cm of my bone and fitted in a global modular rotating system (GMRS) distal femur that cost RM25,000.00. The whole operation literally cost me a bomb of RM44,000.00. I’m still on my crutches, and the doctor advised me to be on it until the third month or so, that is by the end of June. Thank God, the doctor, Prof Choon from University Malaya, felt that it should not recur any more. He was very confident that the worst is over.

While recuperating, two buy elections (Machap and Ijok) were held in less than a month as the former YBs pass away. The oppositions in both seats put a good fight but nevertheless lost but thank goodness manage to keep their deposit. Why buy election, simply because lots of money was involved suddenly place like Machap was lighten up literally with street lamps installed before nomination day. Suddenly schools and roads were repaired just to fish votes. BN spend almost RM30 million and RM36 million respectively in a buy election. The BN machinery was literally triple the might of all oppositions put together. Sometimes I wonder, we Malaysians can really be bought over so long as the price is right.

Just after the election, Malaysian were shocked to hear the unnecessary statements by BN two really stupid MPs none other than the ever Bung Mokhtar (Kinabatangan) and Said (Jasin) uttering words unbecoming of an MP by being gender insensitive to Fong Poh Kuan and the women gender. Their defence, they said that they were provoked. Bull shit. Downloading from YouTube, nothing was shown that they were provoked by the opposition in Parliament. That is what I mean by really stupid. After all the huha, they apologized, but after looking at their statement, nothing shows an apology towards Fong who is a woman, victimize by the stupid old guards of backbenchers. As I quote from Forrest Gump, stupid as stupid does.

Then after the whole fiasco of leakage, the real leaks stumble in Parliament. This is most pathetic and embarrassing as Parliament in 2004 spent almost RM90 million on renovation and refurbishment suffers the horror of all horror. Not only leakage but bad wiring was also looming in the face of Samy Vellu, what the toooot. Quarrelling between Ministers were seen publicly pointing the fingers but never in their right mind gave an explanation and accept the responsibility. Aren’t they accountable to the people? It’s the people’s money. So much spending and yet a damn stupid work unbecoming of professionals. I (and I believe not only me) call for the Minister in Charge of Parliamentary Affairs and the Minister of Works to resign and give other better people to do the work. PAC must investigate this nonsense. And I quote ‘stupid as stupid does’

After Parliament, two other public buildings when hay wire. One was the hospital in Kedah and the other is the second largest court complex in the world in Jalan Duta. Cracks were seen, ceiling drop, water sipped into, causing extensive damage, and worst still to my horror, there is no certificate of fitness. What is in God’s name is all this. Barely a month, our court complex became a laughing stock in this country and every parts of the world. This are all ‘wayang gambar’. How many million or billion spend? Whose money? My dear Samy must take responsibility and resign. If this happen in the United States and England, I believe not only the minister will resign but the whole administration will resign en bloc. This is what I called the doctrine of collective responsibility. Unheard in Bolehland. Where our ministers will continue to be ministers at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. Anyway Mahatir did mentioned that he wanted to sack Mr Samy but was unable to as he heads his party. Utterly rubbish.

The Prime Minister owes Malaysian not only an explanation but there should be a Royal Commission of Inquiry as lots of money was spend.

One problem leads to another, this time civil servant received huge pay rise. My goodness, I'm wondering whether our delivery system will match their pay rise. Will we have quality in the services of the government? My opinion, it is simply a waste in public funds. As Guan Eng (Secretary General DAP) puts in, "The pay rise and increasing number of civil servants would increase the salaries and pensions by 64% or RM 87.2 billion to RM 224.6 billion under the 9MP(2006-2010) from RM 137.4 billion under the 8MP (2001-2005). The principal question is whether our country would be able to afford such a salary and pension load on our nation’s finances if the civil service is allowed to go bloated unchecked.”

If our delivery system is of first class standard and mentality, then I think they should but what if the delivery system is a failure? Is the civil servants in our country comes from unemployed graduates who could never will get into the private sector and be employed by the government, so that they can just fill in vacant positions? This is an excellent piece by Guan Eng, and I quote, “My economics advisor Tony Pua explains that part of the problem lies in short-sighted policies that allows the civil service to be used as a dumping ground especially for the ever growing number of unemployed university graduates to find some meaningful employment. I would say that that the other part of the problem lies in government leaders who are intelligent but refuses to see the problem for what it is by pretending to be stupid in continuing to play the numbers game.”

He further says, “The numbers speak for themselves. In 1990 there were 773,997 civil servants rising to 894,788 in 2006 and nearly 1.2 million now. What happened to the privatization policy which was supposed to reduce the number of civil servants to 500,000 but has instead increased by nearly 150%? This is more than just the failure of the privatization policy, it is also about the failure of deregulation entailing a smaller government that is leaner, cheaper and more expenditure efficient as well as reducing the financial burden to public finances.”

So what happen to privatization policy by Mahatir’s administration, and I thought we are suppose to save for rainy days. Is the government a talking shop. Our beloved and dear King in his birthday speech on the 2^nd June, advise all of his subject to be ‘jimat-cermat’ and the government is doing directly opposite the advise of the King. This is what we say cakap tak serupa bikin. No action talk only. Maybe our Government should trade mark that phrase.

Then, came the long awaiting decision of Lina Joy, where a 2-1 verdict disallowed the application of Lina to delete the word Islam in her identity card. It is a sad day for the country and the supremacy of the constitution. And I always thought that judges swore to uphold the constitution and to protect it, but what happen to Article 11. The way I see it, I think we better not have a written constitution since the past 50 years there has been so many attacks on it. Lina Joy not only lose her right to delete her religious status in her IC but also the right to marry and have her own family. This is definitely a sad day for her.

On the broadcasting side, I was informed that there were 400 news reports on her case in the whole world. As such, we have become a public view by the world, I call upon the Ministers and MPs/SA in MCA-MIC-Gerakan-PPP-SUPP-PBS or other political parties to make a stand on this constitutional right issue.

Now what next after Lina? She was asked to go to the syariah court for an order to be an apostate. Will she get it? Or will the syariah court wears the criminal cap, and forced Lina to be rehabilitated instead of allowing her application to be an apostate? What a contradiction.