[Ip-health] why doha export rules should apply to devices also

[Daya Shanker]

Dear James
One of my articles "The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, teh
Dispupte Settlement System of the WTO and the Doha Declaration on the
TRIPS Agreement" was recently published in Journal of World Trade,
36(4): 721-772, 2002. It is an honest and a proper legal analysis of
Declaration on the TRIPS AGreement and Public Health at Doha. The Doha
Declaration for all practical purpose is a dead instrument
particularly after what we saw the International Monetary Fund
mediated interpretation of the TRIPS Agreement in "The Mutually Agreed
solutions Between the USA and Argentina". Two of the main achievements
of the Doha Declaration i.e. paragraph 5a and paragraph 5b recognizing
inteepretation of TRIPS provisions in the light of the object and
purpose and freedom to determine the grounds upon which compulsory
licenses were to be granted have been mercilessly removed while
forcing Argentina to change its patent act to remove use of
competition policy from its patent act apart from a number of other
coerced changes. I had discussed this aspect in my previous mail and I
have just concluded the detailed analysis. HOwever, the present
article may still be of some use to developing countries to retrieve
some aspects of the Doha Declaration. In fact as discussed by Prof. R.
D. Blair and T.F. Cotter, such mutually agareed solutions shoudl be
treated as 'illegal per se' (R. D. Blair and Thomas Cotter, Are
Settlements of Patent disputes Illegal per se?, Teh Antitrust
Bulletin/Summer-Fall 2002, pp. 491-539).
Daya Shanker
    > During the WTO discussions some countries, including my own,
have sought to
> limit any agreement on the export of medical inventions to
pharmaceuticals,
> (which mentoned in Paragraph 6 of the Doha declaration).  Many
developoing
> country delegates have indicated the resolution of the para 6 issues
should
> be expanded to included medicial devices, such as HIV diagnostics or
blood
> screening technologies (the later a topic of a Roche CL request in
Germany).
>   The note below from my mother regarding the cohlear implant (a
device  is
> one of the reasons why I think it makes no sense to limit the
resolution of
> this to pharmacueticals only.  I would add that the cost of
something like a
> cohlear implant is a huge barrier to access.   Jamie
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: NASA role in development of Cochlear Implant
> Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 15:18:07 EDT
> From: Pamela Love
> To: james.love@cptech.org
>
> It has been 6 years since I had  a cohlear implant and it has
changed my
> life and those around me. I became almost totally deaf and withdrew
more or
> less from  society. Now I enjoy oppera and other music and can dance
again
> to modern beats. Thanks to this Nasa man. Why not a postage stamp in
his
> honor?   The need for this proceedure is growing  with the noise we
live
> with. Pamela  Love
>
>
>
> --
> ------
> James Love, Consumer Project on Technology
> http://www.cptech.org, mailto:love@cptech.org
> voice: 1.202.387.8030; mobile 1.202.361.3040
>
>
>
>
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