[Ip-health] Tom Giovanetti on the R&D Treaty, and political science

[Malini Aisola]

http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=3Dcom_jd-wp&Itemid=3D39

Tom Giovanetti on the R&D Treaty, and political science

James Love
November 10th, 2007

Tom Giovanetti kindly sent me a link to his latest NGO bashing. This one
titled: =93IP skeptic NGOs as Marxists.=94 This is his attempt to label the
various public health groups as Marxists, and his brief attempt to
understand or describe a February 2005 proposal for one possible
approach R&D Treaty.

First, I have told Tom Giovanetti several times that while his
hysterical red baiting is amusing at times, it is also sometimes
offensive and boring.

KEI has supported innovations in innovation policy, certainly. Tom seems
to support the elimination of current flexibilities the current
WTO/TRIPS framework, and demands a stronger, less flexible but elaborate
global system of complex rules for patents and other types of
intellectual property. Specifically, Tom wants to force every country to
embrace very precise rules on the granting of legal monopolies, designed
by governments as social engineers to stimulate private investment in R&D.

KEI thinks it is appropriate to consider some alternatives or a least a
new emphasis in the global regime to support R&D. KEI would not focus
entirely on high drug prices, as the sole mechanisms to stimulate R&D.
This is entirely inappropriate in a world with enormous disparities in
incomes.

KEI thinks the evolving global regime should be flexible in terms of
instruments used to stimulate R&D, including of course various national
preferences on rules for patents and other intellectual property rights,
but also other instruments, such as multilateral agreements that would
address the need for government funded research, as well as well as
newer incentive mechanisms that reward investors in successful R&D
products with money, rather than monopolies.

Even the industry trade association IFPMA supports more government
funding for priority research. In Geneva this week the IFPMA called for
$5 to $10 billion in new subsides for developing 8 new drugs for
neglected diseases, a proposal that KEI and other NGOs will likely
support in some form, after the details are elaborated and discussed.
Why is the IFPMA proposal for government funded non-profit R&D
consortiums not attracting Tom=92s Marxist label? What about the
UK/German, Indian and Kenyan proposals for an R&D fund? What about the
G8 and Gates proposals on advanced market commitments? What about the
NIH proposals for multilateral funding of open source vaccine research?
Are we all Marxists when it comes to funding medical R&D?

In any event, the February 2005 R&D treaty proposal, which is only one
of perhaps a dozen recent proposals for an R&D treaty, was designed to
(1) give member states enormous flexibility in terms of the instruments
to fund R&D, including strong or weak IPR, (2) to manage R&D projects
and programs in their own ways, and (3) to use market incentives,
including tradeable credits, to encourage decentralized actors to pursue
research targets in areas of priority. I doubt that any simple
ideological label is very accurate, since the proposal incorporates many
differ ideas, made by a diverse set of persons (including even some
provided in a very helpful Washington, DC consultation organized by USTR).

In the end, Tom will find that it is not so much ideology that brings
people together in the new =93i+a=94 movement, but it is the heart, and the
growing recognition that a world should not be so impoverested or
divided in terms of the benefits of innovation.

This is from the Giovanetti blog

http://www.policybytes.org/blog/PolicyBytes.nsf/dx/ip-skeptic-ngos-as-marxi=
sts.htm

At various times I have described the gaggle of activists that has
congealed around opposition to intellectual property as =93IP skeptics=94 (=
I
think I may have coined that term), =93anti-IP=94, =93anti-capitalist=94,
=93anti-corporate,=94 =93neo- Marxist,=94 etc. In my most recent blog entry=
, I
referred to them as Marxists.

This label was, apparently, not appreciated. Though I should note that
it was not denied.

So I=92d like to make the case that, in fact, these activist NGOs are, in
fact, Marxists, or at least that they advocate what can accurately be
described as a Marxist agenda. I=92ll leave it to others to decide if
groups who push a Marxist agenda can accurately be described as Marxist.

I=92ll construct my argument first by reminding us all of what Marxists
actually believe and advocate. Then I=92ll describe for you the pi=E8ce de
r=E9sistance of their agenda, the Medical R&D Treaty.

[snip]