Letter to Editor, WSJ

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

On Friday, April 24, the Wall Street Journal published a "correction"
which indicated that:

    In the April 17, Americas column "Pirates Plunder
    Patents.  Will Rule of Law Prevail?" by Owen Lippert,
    A direct quotation regarding patent protection
    was incorrectly attributed to James Packard Love.  
    Mr. Love did not make the statement quoted.  We 
    regret the error.  

Since this appeared at the bottom of the page next to the "Pepper . .
and Salt" cartoon, and was unlikely to be read by very many people, I
also asked the WSJ for the opportunity to write an op ed.  This was
turned down.  One editor told me to give them a 400 word letter to the
editor, which I submitted this morning.  In this letter, I tried to
introduce our preference for a change in trade agreements for health
care IP issues, to focus on burden sharing for R&D, rather than property
rights and commercial interests, giving countries discretion in the
mechanisms to fund R&D.   The letter follows:

-----

Dear Editor

	On April 17, Owen Lippert's guest editorial "Pirates Plunder Patents"
attacked me for advocating "stripping drug companies of . . . patents,"
in the San Jose Business Forum on the Free Trade Area for the Americas
(FTAA), a position which I did not advocate.

	Mr. Lippert erred by presenting as quotes phrases and ideas that I
never said, as indicated by the Journal's April 23 correction, and he
also presented an entirely misleading picture of disputes concerning
intellectual property and the FTAA.

	To begin with, it simply isn't true that the FTAA even needs to address
intellectual property issues.  The World Trade Organization's (WTO)
agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS)
already sets out a comprehensive framework for protection of
intellectual property, including worldwide requirements for 20 year
patents on pharmaceuticals, unfair competition protections for health
registration data, and many other topics.  

	What is at issue in the FTAA negotiations is what if anything should be
done that isn't already done in TRIPS.   Pharmaceutical, entertainment
and software companies are seeking new international norms that go
beyond the TRIPS and beyond current U.S. law.  This is fine if one
mindlessly believes that when it comes to IP rights, more is always
better, but many informed participants recognize that modern IP policies
balance complex competing interests, and that overbroad protections can
be antitcompetitive and harm innovation.

	It is true that we want to modify the TRIPS, which focuses on property
rights and commercials interests, to accommodate different national
approaches in the area of public health.  We support a new paradigm that
is based upon international burden sharing for research and
development.  Countries would be obligated to share in the costs of
health care research and development, but could use different mechanisms
to accomplish this.

	Certainly patents are one mechanisms to support health care R&D, and I
expect widespread use of patent protection for pharmaceuticals,
regardless of treaty obligations.  However, countries could also satisfy
burden-sharing obligations through publicly funded research, like the
U.S. NIH, or through innovative R&D reinvestment obligations, such as
those which have been considered in the U.S. and by some European
Countries.  The goal should be to insure high worldwide levels of health
care research, including research, which addresses the needs of
consumers in poor countries, and universal access to new medical
technologies.

Sincerely,

James Packard Love
Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org


-- 
James Love
Consumer Project on Technology
P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
love@cptech.org | http://www.cptech.org
202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5176