International Legal Position on Software Patents

International Legal Position on Software Patents Title ‘Discuss critically the current international legal position on the patentability of software and business method inventions’. Introduction As a general proposition, the speed at which a true global economy has been assembled over the past 20 years has been the dominant element in the re-ordering of international legal regulations concerning software and business method patents. The central premise of this paper is the that ability to regulate by patent the speed of scientific progress is akin to attempting to score a direct hit on a moving target. This paper will examine the relationship between global economic forces and patentability, first from the United Kingdom perspective as an example of a national intellectual property protection system. The analysis will then be directed to the European Patent Convention and its regulatory framework, with a comparison drawn between the EPC and other regimes. The supranational patent enforcement structure provided by way of the World Trade Organisation is the final international aspect of the review. These selected legal frameworks are not intended as an exhaustive summary of international patent law; they establish a useful basis against which the present question may be considered from commercial and public perspectives. As the following review illustrates, international software and business method patent law is a mixture of legal theory, economic factors, and philosophical preferences regarding the control of ideas and related technologies. The international intellectual property legal order is not so much a finite system as it is a still-evolving organism where certainty of result and clarity of legal purpose are not settled. Patents, software and business method inventions generally The term ‘business method invention’ is a very broad and circumstance driven notion; it is often defined by what it is not, as opposed to what in fact it represents. As a general rule, business method inventions are any design that encompasses economic activities such as buying and selling items, marketing techniques, financial schemes (e.g. pension plan organisations) and gaming strategies.[1] In the European Union, the historical distinction between patentable and non-patentable inventions was the presence of a technical component in the design or system; business method inventions were therefore inherently non-patentable concepts in Europe.[2] Software is a similarly broad term that is capable of bearing several meanings. For the purpose of the present review, system software is any software required to support the production or execution of application programs but which is not specific to any particular application[3]. Examples of system software would include a computer operating system[4]. By contrast, application programs include Microsoft Excel © or computer assisted drawing (CAD) programmes; this software includes source code written by humans and executable machine code[5]. Software does not usually include the data processed by programs unless the desired format depends on the use of computers for its presentation, such as multimedia[6]. Patents and intellectual property protection turns on two fundamental principles, the territorial nature of the protection, and the extent to which a patent holder may permit others through licenses or other agreements to use the protected property. Given that patent law is not harmonised to any significant degree, patent protection is at best a variable and imperfect tool to promote rights associated with software and business inventions. [7] As this analysis progresses, it is important to distinguish between the characteristics of patents and those of copyright. Copyright is the protection afforded to intellectual property regarding how an idea may be expressed or controlled. While copyright does not safeguard the idea itself, software copyright usually extends its coverage to the reproduction of software source codes. Patents are the legal protection granted by a country over an invention, its underlying methodology, or its function. Patent law provides more comprehension protection that that available by copyright, licensing, or other any other safeguards that may be created by a contract over intellectual property. A patent is commercially desirable because as it establishes a legal monopoly over the protected property for the patent holder, adding value to the protected concept. The American influence A critical discussion of international software patent law that does not touch upon the American legal position is akin to not mentioning the proverbial white elephant seated at one’s dinner table. The United States Patent Office historically has been the busiest such institution in the world; American based companies initiate more patents world wide that any other business sector. The United States Supreme Court was the first to legalise software patents[8] and the first major jurisdiction to give explicit recognition to the concept of the business method patent.[9] American influence has been important but not determinative in these areas; however, the American test for a business method invention patent as whether the subject concept leads to a ‘useful, concrete and tangible result’ is very influential.[10] The American approach may be borne in mind as the UK, European, and World Trade Organisation positions are considered. UK patents Reflecting the biases of the first English patent law[11], there was a long held reluctance in the UK to permit computer innovation patents. In the 1970s, as computer technology experienced incredible global growth, UK patents were restricted to industrial innovations, machinery, manufactured products, and tangible items. Patents were not granted in the UK where the subject involved the mathematical expression of a scientific truth such as an algorithm. Three recent UK patent law decisions are instructive in this regard. The most current and arguably the most important articulation of UK software patent law principles is Aerotel Ltd. v Telco Holdings Ltd.[12] The Court of Appeal considered the deficiencies of both UK and European patent legislation in light of modern global commercial developments. The Court, through Jacobs LJ stated that it had no concern for the intense current political debates concerning software patents[13], a statement that is difficult to accept at face value given the multinational nature of the case. However, the Court described the fundamental purpose for modern patent protection in clear and unambiguous language: The patent system is there to provide a research and investment incentive but it has a price. That price (what economists call transaction costs) is paid in a host of ways: the costs of patenting, the impediment to competition, the compliance cost of ensuring non-infringement, the cost of uncertainty, litigation costs and so on. There is, so far as we know, no really hard empirical data showing that the liberalisation of what is patentable in the USA has resulted in a greater rate of innovation or investment in the excluded categories. Innovation in computer programs, for instance, proceeded at an immense speed for years before anyone thought of granting patents for them as such[14]. The Court held that all (emphasis added) potential UK patents should be validated by a two part test expressed in the following terms: First, determine what the inventor has contributed to the art over and above a computer operating in a new way as a matter of substance and, second, determine whether this contribution lies in excluded matter or, on the contrary, whether it consists in a technical contribution or effect.[15] Menashe Business Mercantile Ltd v. Hill [16]is an equally instructive 2002 decision of the Court of Appeal, as the reasons for judgement underscore the fluidity of modern computer based commercial applications and the difficulty to apply traditional enforcement methods, in the context of the relationship between UK and European community patent law. The plaintiff Menashe commenced an action seeking UK enforcement of a patent issued by the European Patent Office regarding his interactive gambling software. The defendant Hill claimed that as the host computer required to operate the software system was located outside of the UK, there could be no breach of the Menache patent. The Court held that in this case, jurisdiction over the patent ‘lay with the punter’[17] – where gambling activities occurred by means of UK computer access, Hill violated the patent and the UK courts could enforce the patent. The decision referenced as CFPHs Applications, 2005[18] is a useful summary of how the UK and European Patent offices approach both software patents and business inventions; the Court strikes a blow for pragmatism in its conclusion that there will likely never to be a comprehensive definition of ‘invention’.[19] Accordingly, the court suggested that difference in the approaches of the UK and European patent offices should have little effect on how patents are enforced in most cases.[20] The complexity of each of the noted cases underscores an important barrier to enforcement the current patent system serves only those who can afford to litigate a patent claim. European Patent Convention (EPC) The European Union is the second most active patent registration regime in the world. EPC Article 52(1) sets out the general rule: European patents will be granted for any inventions that include a ‘technical character’.[21] Conversely, the patentability exclusions described in Article 52(2) include traditional business methods that have no invention or technical component. However, a number of concepts that combine technical and non-technical components have been approved for European patent, including an x-ray machine with a software component[22] and other computer related devices.[23] The language of EPC Articles 52 and 53 when taken together has resulted in significant confusion with respect to the availability of software patents.[24] The articles stated that ‘as such’ computer programmes are excluded from patentability, yet as of 2005 over 40,000 software –related patents had been granted by the EPO in a host of technology fields. When coupled with differing rules enacted in each of the EU member nations, software patent laws in Europe are decidedly ambiguous.[25] Europe has been an ideological battleground pitting commercial software developers against the advocates of Open Source Software (OSS)[26] over the question of whether software should be patented at all. The OSS proponents (a world wide constituency) regard software patent laws as an inhibition to true technological progress. In July, 2005 the European Parliament rejected a legislative proposal that would have expanded the ability of software developers to obtain patent protection for their inventions. Given the size and influence of the European market, the European rejection of tighter software patents may be an indicator of a larger global trend to make software generally more accessible and conversely, less amenable to patent protection.. Since 1977, patents issued by the European Patent Office have enforceable through the patent legislation of member countries; Menashe[27] is an example. EPC Article 64 provides that the national law is the only enforcement mechanism for an alleged patent violation. It is submitted that without harmonised European enforcement, a truly effective patent system is impossible; given the importance of software development, the persistence of the present system suggests that the software industry is not entirely troubled by the patchwork European law in this regard. This European legislative deficiency mirrors those of the global software and business method patent arena. World Trade Organisation (WTO) With more than 150 member countries and a host of trade agreements and protocols that touch upon wide areas of international commerce, the WTO occupies a position of apparent importance in international software patent regulation. The foundation WTO initiative is TRIPS[28], the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, ratified January 1, 1995. TRIPS is an initiative that represents the culmination of a series of multi-lateral intellectual property agreements concluded by the WTO membership. TRIPS has been heralded as the blueprint for handling international intellectual property disputes. In light of the European developments noted above, coupled with the resounding failure of earlier WTO initiatives[29], it is exceedingly doubtful that TRIPS will become an accepted software patent legislation standard. The ability of the WTO to enforce TRIPS must also be considered in light of how modern international commercial forces are often transnational entities and not the traditional nation state.[30] No significant enforcement action has been successfully undertaken pursuant to the TRIPS protocols since its enactment. What the future holds It is submitted that the current state of international software and business method patents is a natural consequence of the speed that underlies both the function of the global economy and technological development. A coherent and enforceable international patent structure may be laudable, but the speed and inherent flexibility of innovation operating independent of any government restriction appears to have spawned a new world order where rules exist as guidelines only. As Europe and the WTO struggle to resolve the patentability of â€Å"simple† computer software applications, science is relentlessly forged ahead with biotechnical and genetic software questions[31] that will pose even more perplexing regulatory issues. Bibliography Beresford, Keith â€Å"Patenting Software under the European Patent Convention† (London: Sweet Maxwell, 2003) Boyle, James â€Å"Fencing off ideas: enclosure the disappearance of the public domain† (2002) Daedalus Vol. 131, Cahill, Lisa Sowle â€Å"Biotech Justice: Catching up with the New World Order† (2003) The Hastings Center Report Vol. 33, 1 Caulder, Isis E. â€Å"Patenting Software – The Standards in U.S., Europe, Japan and Canada† http://www.bereskinparr.com/English/publications/pdf/Patent-Six-Minute-IP.pdf (Accessed January 28, 2007) FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of Computers), Imperial College http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?query=software (Accessed January 28, 2007) Guadamusz, Andres â€Å"Open Science: Open Source Software Licenses and Scientific Research† BILETA April, 2005 Ius Mentis http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/businessmethods/epc/ (Accessed January 28, 2007) Lerner, Paul and Alexander Poltorak â€Å"Essentials of Intellectual Property† (New York: Wiley, 2002) Raymond, Eric â€Å"The New Hackers Dictionary† (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1991) World Trade Organisation / Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm (accessed January 28, 2007) Table of Cases Aerotel Ltd. v Telco Holdings Ltd. [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 CFPHs Appns [2005] EWHC 1589 (Pat) Commissioner of Patents v. Harvard College [2002] SCC 77 (S.C.C.), Computer-Related Invention/Vicom, Decision T 208/84 EPO (OJ 1987, 14) Diamind v Diehr (1981) 450 U.S. 175 Koch Sterzel, Decision T 26/86 EPO (OJ 1988, 19) Menashe Business Mercantile Ltd v Hill [2002] EWCA Civ 1702 State Street Bank and Trust v Signature Financial Group (1998)149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. C. A.) Table of Statutes European Patent Convention UK Patent Rules, 1995 UK Patent Act, 1977 WTO / Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property 1 [1] Ius Mentis http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/businessmethods/epc/, 1 [2] See the European Patent Convention Art. 52, 53, infra [3] Software definition by FOLDOC, http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?query=software [4] FOLDOC, ibid [5] FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of Computers), supported by Imperial College (Department of Computing), London [6] FOLDOC, ibid [7] See Pt. 5 (EPC) and Pt. 6 (WTO), infra [8] Diamind v Diehr (1981) 450 U.S. 175 [9] State Street Bank and Trust v Signature Financial Group (1998)149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. C. A.) [10] Caulder, Isis E. â€Å"Patenting Software – The Standards in U.S., Europe, Japan and Canada†, 4, 5 [11] Statute of Monopolies, 1623 [12] [2006] EWCA Civ 1371 [13] Aerotel, supra, 7 [14] Ibid, 8 [15] Ibid, 9 [16] [2002] EWCA Civ 1702 [17] Ibid, 1707 [18] [2005] EWHC 1589 (Pat). [19] ibid [20] ibid [21] See also Rule 27, European Patent rules [22] Koch Sterzel, Decision T 26/86 EPO (OJ 1988, 19 [23] Computer-Related Invention/Vicom, Decision T 208/84 EPO (OJ 1987, 14) [24] Beresford, Keith â€Å"Patenting Software under the European Patent Convention† (London: Sweet Maxwell, 2003), c 3,4 [25] Caulder, 5 [26] The Open Source debate is one beyond the scope of this paper. See Raymond, Eric The New Hackers Dictionary (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1991); also Guadamusz, Andres ‘Open Science: Open Source Software Licenses and Scientific Research’ BILETA April, 2005 [27] (n 14) [28] World Trade Organization http://www.wto.org> [29] E.g. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [30] E.g. Microsoft; Cahill, Lisa Sowle â€Å"Biotech Justice: Catching up with the New World Order† (2003) The Hastings Center Report Vol. 33, 1 [31] Commissioner of Patents v. Harvard College [2002] SCC 77 (S.C.C.)

Stella Ting-Tommeys Toward a Theory of Conflict and Culture Essay

Stella Ting-Tommey's "Toward a Theory of Conflict and Culture" Introduction This research report is based on the article "Toward a Theory of Conflict and Culture" taken from the book Communication, Culture, and Organizational Processes. In this article, Stella Ting-Toomey talks about culture and conflict and its relation to low- and high-context cultures. Summary Ting-Toomey starts the article by addressing conflict. Conflict is part of human nature. It stems from many things. An example of a possible conflict could stem from differences in culture. She lists several other examples of possible conflict. She breaks the article up into three sections to better understand the idea of conflict versus culture. The first section deals with defining culture and conflict. Ting-Toomey defines conflict as "a form of interpersonal or intrapersonal tension between two or more parties based on goals, needs, desires, values, beliefs, and/or attitudes"(Ting-Toomey 72). She defines culture as "a patterned system of symbols and meanings"(Ting-Toomey 72). Conflict is an important par...

A Year in the South: Four Lives in 1865 Essay

Prompt: How did the different backgrounds of John, Cornelia, Lou, and Samuel affect their abilities to adjust to the end of the war? How did the end of the war affect their daily lives? Explain, making sure to support your answer with evidence and quotes from the text. A Year in the South: Four Lives in 1865 The background of an individual allows the individual to adapt to new circumstances no matter how radical the change may be. It is very apparent that in the book, A Year in the South: Four Lives in 1865, that people whether they were black or white suffered different hardships, however their background was what enabled them to succeed or fail after the war. There were four people which this book was focused upon: Louis Hughes, who was an educated slave in the Deep South, in Tombigbee, Alabama; Cornelia McDonald, who was the wife of a Confederate soldier, and the mother of 7 children in Lexington, Virginia; Samuel Agnew, who was a priest exempted from military service due to his position in the church, in Tippah County, Mississippi, and John Robertson, who was an ex-confederate soldier looking to settle down and live a religious life accepting defeat as a Confederate soldier, in East Tennessee. Although the backgrounds of each of these individuals were different, their skills gained f rom their background is what led them to be able to adapt or fail to adapt to the end of the war. Louis Hughes was an educated slave who was taught many skills by his master whom he refers to as boss, and skills he learned from various jobs but not limited to nursing, working in the fields, and working the salt works. Louis Hughes was very highly skilled for a slave. â€Å"Nursing was only one of many skills Lou acquired in the McGehee household. He could drive a carriage, cultivate an ornamental garden, and even operate a sewing machine, not to mention serve expertly as butler and body servant.† (Ash 25) This shows how well rounded Lou was as a slave and as an individual. Lou was also of an entrepreneurial mindset and is shown when he was in the salt works, where he borrowed money from the other slaves and bought tobacco plugs to sell. Having discerned that the area could only produce salt, he was highly successful and procured a fifty dollar profit from the sales which granted attention from N.S. Brooks. Brooks then obtained five hundred plugs for Lou  to sell in which he made a huge profit from. Lou had noticed that â€Å"it was all rebel money† but was sharp enough and â€Å"bought up all the silver† he could get his hands on. (Ash 21) This lead to believe that Lou would buy something that will retain its value if the confederacy were to lose or win. That way he could keep his assets safe. As soon as the first sign of invasion was near Madam had sent for all her slaves. Lou had been sent out to the fields for the remainder of the time of the invasion was upon arrival, even though there was hardly a presence in the remote area he was in. During the time he was working in the field he remembered how his master had shown two sides of his master. On one side, his master had been seen as a benevolent and would go out and cure people. On the other hand, there was one where he was seen as temperamental and aggressive. Lou has held much resentment towards this side, and recalls a time where Boss gave him a whipping. This made Lou’s yearning for freedom even greater than it was before. Eventually in the summer, Lou and another slave named George had decided to escape, not knowing that the war had ended and they were granter freedom. The two unknowing freedmen then made their way to Memphis, mostly by foot with fear that they might be caught and sent back. The last bit, after they felt more secure was by train, Lou had purchased using his earnings from the plugs. There they were turned down by the official in charge, found that the war had ended in the Union victory and traveled back Senatobia. On their way there, with a rented wagon and two bottles of whiskey presumably bought with the silver that Lou had obtained by selling plugs, ran into two union soldiers. He bartered to have the Union soldiers go to Madam’s house to announce the confederate defeat in exchange for a whisky bottle. The union soldiers did exactly that. After doing so the freedmen and their wives along with other freedmen headed to Memphis, escorted some of the way by the same soldiers. There they made a living, or idled about enjoying their new freedom. However, Lou and his company had decided to go to Cincinnati to see if they could find Matilda’s mother which eventually they did. Lou was able adapt and succeed in almost any job he was given due to his background of working with similar jobs he had held before. Lou was able to adapt in such a way to where it is believed he was successful after the war in the terms of the new freedom he had attained. Lou was able to supersede adversity of the changing political and economic  crisis of the south after the war. Samuel Agnew was a priest in Tippah County, Mississippi. His family were avid supporters of the Confederate cause, running and hiding at the alarm of Yankee invasion. Sam was exempted from the war because he was a minister, although accosted he was a few times under the presumption that he was avoiding the draft. He had heard of the devastation that the confederate soldiers had endured, and kept a keen interest in news about the war, and the policies that the Confederacy was putting in his free time. He tried to cultivate opium and tobacco, as a hobby and to sell to make money to use to buy provisions. In times of heavy depression, and where prices kept going up and money and supply were scarce. Even though the war was over and Sam had accepted that fact he still had a strong sense of confederacy patriotism which came from his family holding a small plantation, and using slave hands to tend to it. His father, â€Å"Enoch had listed the value of his plantation as $23,500,† whic h he Union via President Johnson had declared that along with the generals and officials of the Confederacy, any citizen with more than twenty thousand dollars in assets. â€Å"That provision was clearly aimed at the planters, a class whom Johnson despised and whom he blamed for the breakup of the Union. This was something the Agnews would have to reckon with†. (Ash 145) This was one of the hardships that could not be avoided by Sam as to see that living with his father and his small plantation would be greatly affected by this. Eventually, Sam had to gather the slaves and announce that they were freedmen, however none of them left immediately, they stayed and did only the necessary work, but did not work as efficiently as they did when they were slaves. Sam dictates that the freedmen were â€Å"‘doing as they please: they go off in daylight on their own business and are not giving their master’s concerns any attention.’ As a consequence, Sam found himself taking on unaccustomed chores around the plantation: making a new rope for the well bucket, gathering and cleaning the loose bits of cotton scattered around the floor of the gin house.† (Ash 151) This shows that even though he had little practice cultivating, he was ill prepared for the jobs that he had his slaves at the time do. Sam could not adapt to the end of the war. He had no experience in the work that the slaves did thus was struggling to meet ends meet, which is also displayed in their dying livestock. Later on  he would hire the freedmen to work in the fields and pay them to do so. Disgusted at the level he was at negotiating with what used to be his family’s property. Eventually this disdain, and losing assets would leave him with no freedmen come New Year’s Day of the following year after the war. This would leave his family in ruins and unable to cope with the post war times ahead. Thus Sam Agnew was not prepared for the end of the war economically, and with the lack of skills seeing as how they were ruined with no workers or livestock that would help them with the plantation that his father had owned. Sam after having lost everything had failed to change with the ending of the war and the new policies of the United States and had suffered economically. John Robertson was a young ex-confederate soldier whom after being captured in the war and forced to surrender to get out of prison, was looking for a religious revival and to have a normal life. He planned to become a minister as he professed to Tennie, and â€Å"John was an old hand† at raising â€Å"wheat during the years John was growing up in Greene County.† (Ash 172) Showing he had some skills to go upon and would have self-sufficiency. Even though he had surrendered and allowed to go back home he remains bitter and still harbors hate towards the union after the confederate loss. As soon as the Unionist established dominance in East Tennessee, he realized that he hated the native unionist more than the Unionist that came from other states. This is mainly due to the fact that he was a Confederate from Tennessee and saw the native unionists as traitors. This played a giant role in making his daily life really difficult especially in the church due to governor Brownlow, who had resented all of the confederates that imprisoned him. Later on, John would pay the price for his war acts. The Lincolnites â€Å"were determined to kill him, there was nothing he could do to stop them—nothing, that is, except go where they could not find him. Through the waning days of August, he agonized over his plight. By September, he had decided he must leave.† (Ash 180) This shows that John’s past would dictate how he would live his future and that he would have to evade the Unionists that were looking for revenge for his past sins, thus pressured him to leave Tennessee and retreat to Springfield. He settled down and immersed himself in education and religion. Although he had settled there with an uncle he was  determined to go back, thus John’s background is preventing him from having a successfully way to cope with the end of the war emotionally due to his inability to see his love, Tennie. Cornelia McDonald was the wife of a wealthy confederate army officer. Cornelia had relied heavily on her husband’s salary thus when she died everything went downhill very fast. She had no basic house skills except for sewing and mending clothes. She lacked basic skill so she â€Å"had to hire someone to do the cooking for the same reason she had to pay for carding, spinning, and weaving: as a well-bred woman who had always had money and slaves, she had never learned those skills because she never had to perform those chores.† (Ash 38) This will play into account when the war comes around as those are necessities and will affect and drain the money from Cornelia in the latter half of the year. She would have to pay someone else for these essential skills. As for the skill she did have was to tutor for painting and foreign languages, these seem more of a luxury than a necessity as will be seen in at the end of the book. She is barely able to support herself and her family after her husband dies and the meager earning she gets goes to food and not enough is left over rent and she engrossed in debt and eventually becomes ruined financially. Cornelia is struggling emotionally as well and claims to see her â€Å"‘noble sons, little daughter, and pretty little boys dragged down so low.’† (Ash 158) This was one of her greater struggles as she could not believe that just a few years ago they were so prosperous and now doing jobs that were so â€Å"beneath them†. This is just a clear indicator that she was not able to adapt to the circumstances of a changing political climate and her lack of ability to adapt is shown very clearly financially and emotional ly. All in all most of the Southerners had a tough time coping with the end of the war because of their inability, and lack of essential self-sustaining skills. Lou and John were the only ones to see progress in their life although not in significant amount but they were better off than those of the rich white plantation and slave owners. The reason was their ability to cope with hardships way before the end of the war and these times of hardships helped them transition into the post war era, whereas Cornelia and  Sam were ruined, because they lived a life where they had enough money to sustain themselves, and did not need to worry about the skills until it was too late. The background of each of the southerner, and their essential skills or lack thereof have left them in in the state they were in either with stability or instability financially, or emotionally. Bibliography Ash, Stephen V. A Year in the South: Four Lives in 1865. New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Cultural Competence and Clinical Expertise

To identify the link between cultural competence and clinical expertise, their meanings should first be defined. Cultural competence is defined by the US Department of Health and Human Services, as â€Å"the level of knowledge based skills required to provide effective clinical care to patients from a particular ethnic or racial group†. Furthermore, it has been qualified and classified as: â€Å"†¦behaviors, attitudes, and policies that can come together on a continuum: that will ensure that a system, agency, program, or individual can function effectively and appropriately in diverse cultural interaction and settings†¦.† (US Department of Health and Human Services website). Although there has not been one single exact definition of cultural competence in the practice of medicine in general, each institution that has sought to define it did so within the premise of identifying ethnic differences in the general population that the medical community seeks to ser ve.The growing ethnic diversity in the US population now currently at 15% averages in major urban centers (Elliott) and by 2050, at least a quarter of the elderly population (Elliott), the importance of cultural competence as it relates to clinical expertise and medical service efficiency cannot be denied. As such, if a health professional is not well versed in communicating or interpreting reactions of the patient (either the patient is the one belonging to the minority group or vice versa), the impact on diagnosis and prognosis could be substantial enough to affect the outcome of medical service provision.Different ethnic groups have their varying interpretation with regards their interpretation of certain illnesses or diseases and how it impacts their family and well being. Thus, if a health professional aims to be well rounded and claim to be efficient in clinical applications, a degree of understanding all the varied cultural differences among his/her patient population should be reached. 2. Discuss a difficult interaction you have experienced or observed that may have resulted from intercultural differences (consider that every form of interaction between 2 people can be considered intercultural in some sense of the word).Define the interaction and an optimal approach to resolve it. One particular experience that I can easily recall is an encounter with an elderly Filipino couple while on duty at the local community clinic. I wasn’t privy or aware of Filipino customs and traditions with regards to care for the elderly in general but I assumed that like most of Caucasian elderly or senior communities, anybody 65 and above would be living in a senior community, or at least living independently of their adult children.When discussing the prognosis for the care of the husband’s post operative needs (he had colorectal cancer) and early symptoms of dementia, I assumed that he would be place in an elderly care skilled nursing facility. The couple, particularly the wife was livid even at the suggestion (or assumption) that her husband would be put away in a facility. After a lengthy discussion with the wife, and a succeeding session with an adult daughter, it was only then that I came to know that Filipinos are like most South East Asians. They have an extended family household setting.They take care of their elderly at home and expect everybody to participate in the care of the elderly. They cannot fathom or even begin to think of putting one of their elders in a group home or skilled nursing facility no matter how difficult the post operative care requirement is. The encounter with the Filipino couple and their extended family was an eye opener for me. When I made the assumption that the husband will presumably be transferred from the hospital after corrective surgery, I just assumed wrong and simply offended the sensibilities of the wife and even the daughter.It is a lesson that I will not make again in the future. I shoul d have put into consideration their profile more closely rather than just go over the clinical and medical aspects of the patient’s profile. In conclusion, because of our growing diversity in the US, clinicians should not only be aware of one or two ethno-cultural group but be more â€Å"culturally competent† in dealing with each minority culture’s differences and how they would possibly interpret certain prognosis and care for each patient in the family. References: Cultural Competence in Action: Retrieved on May 28, 2007 from: http://convention. asha.org/2006/handouts/855_1440Mahendra_Nidhi_091029_101806104800. pdf â€Å"Cultural Competence†. (2001). Mental Health Information. Friday's Progress Notes – March 16, 2001. Vol. 5 Issue 6. Retrieved on May 28, 2007 from: http://www. athealth. com/practitioner/newsletter/FPN_5_6. html Elliott, V. S. (2001). Cultural competency critical in elder care. Health & Science. AMNews. Retrieved on May 28, 2007 f rom: http://www. ama-assn. org/amednews/2001/08/06/hll20806. htm US Department of Health and Human Services website (1994): HRSA, Bureau of Health Professions. Retrieved on May 28, 2007 from: http://bhpr. hrsa. gov/diversity/cultcomp. htm