[Ip-health] Re: [Commons-Law] Symposium on the Challenges to India’s Patent Regime | NLSIU, Bangalore | April 12 & 13

Tue Apr 15 10:24:15 2008

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Dear Pranesh
I fully understand and in fact appreciate your advocacy for inclusiveness. But
do we talk about inclusiveness when we discuss monopolization through
patenting and other instruments such as copyrights? How did patenting became
an issue in the Indian context? Is it based on the independent decision
arrived at by sovereign countries in the interest of their citizens? Was the
TRIPS Agreement part of an outcome of sovereign negotiations? The TRIPS
Agreement is not an agreement if you examine it closely. Its interpretation is
not an independent interpretation if you again examine closely. We are
witnessing that in the case of Thailand, Brazil, South Africa and even India.
How many countries are free to even interpret provisions of the TRIPS
Agreement? Try to count them and if you could tell us their names, that would
be wonderful. The last instance of the TRIPS Amendment where each and every
word and comma and full stop proposed by developing countries was removed and
export was added as one of the patenting rights does not appear to be an
outcome of inclusiveness.  Some of these issues I have discussed in my paper
Access to Medicines, Paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration on Public Health, and
Developing Countries in International Treaty Negotiations apparently published
in the Indian Journal of Law and Technology, National Law School University,
Bangalore and as per the information given to me by Thomas the reference is 2
INDIAN J. L. & TECH 8 (2006)(since I have not received the hard copy, I cannot
say more than this).
 Isn't the whole issue of patenting monopolization not an outcome of
international subjugation and to put it more brutally international slavery?
Where does the issue of inclusiveness come into the picture?
Coming to Shamnad Basheer, he is not the first person engaged by the Western
pharmaceutical industry to write their pamphlets. We had Ameer Attaran before
him and in the same University and possibly the same institute. He produced
exactly the same literature. His articles were published in Lancet and JAMA
(Amir Attaran and Les Gillespie White, Do Patents for Antiretroviral Drugs
Constrain Access to AIDS Treatment in Africa, 286 JAMA 1886, 1886-92 (2001))
and you name the journals with impact factor, he was there. He was appointed
in the Harvard University for the sole purpose of attaching the Harvard brand
against his name and we were fed his paper as a great research at Harvard
University. His salary was paid by Africa fights Malaria, a conservative
institution financed by Western industry. It was not that the Harvard
University was ashamed of him. But normally they do not employ people without
some good publications. The paper was a plagiarized version of Les Gillespie
White financed by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It was not
even the original work of Amir Attaran. Amir Attaran is right now Associate
Professor at Ottawa University along with Daniel Gervais. Writing pamphlets
does pay. I have recently seen the name of Shamnad Basheer as visiting
Associate Professor at some American University. As I mentioned, writing
pamphlet does pay. Life is otherwise quite tough. We have so many other people
extremely close to pharmaceutical industry. We have Patricia Danzon. She is
professor at the Wharton Business School. When she got the job she had just
one book published by the American Enterprise Institute.
Did I make my objection regarding Shamnad Basheer clear? Chan Park had done
the wonderful work in Novartis case. I happen to know a little more than Chan
Park regarding intellectual property law and the politics of international
negotiations. People like Shamnad Basheer, may be very intelligent person but
they do not bring respectability to any institution or any organization. They
get some appointments. They get some invitation to the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund but their presence in any conference brings more
of a disrepute to the conference rather than any inclusiveness. I do not feel
happy writing anything against a fellow Indian but somebody has to tell the
facts.
Daya ShankerAt 01:38 AM 14/04/2008, Pranesh Prakash wrote:

Dear Mr. Shanker,
I understand why you may have misgivings about our invitation of Mr. Basheer,
but I believe your misgivings are unnecessary on two grounds: that our
conference is meant to be inclusive; and that the wrongdoing you assert on Mr.
Basheer's part is not a given.
Firstly, the objective of this symposium is not to push forward a particular
agendum, whether pro-pharma, anti-pharma, pro-IP or anti-IP, but to have
broad-based discussions on the various sorts of changes and challenges that
India's current patent regime is facing. While this might involve coming to a
consensus as to solutions (and that would be welcomed), in our pragmatism we
understand that a consensus might not be arrived at, and are ready to face
that. The important thing is to explore issues, and all possible ways of
addressing those issues. The benefits of one approach over another is not
something that we wish to push during this symposium. This, I believe, is
reflected by the wide variety of views and opinions that the speakers
represent. Thus, simply put, Mr. Basheer's "close association" with the
pharmaceutical industry does not hamper his participation in this symposium.
In fact, to get a variety of views, such a association (if it did indeed
exist) would even be preferable. The pharmaceutical industry is after all a
stakeholder, just as the poverty-stricken medicine-less patient is a
stakeholder. The relative weights of their stakeholding (and the issue of
India being socialist) is not something I wish to get into here.
Secondly, Mr. Basheer's "close association" with the pharmaceutical industry
is not a given. As he has pointed out (and Chan Park has agreed), his report,
part of which was copied without the necessary acknowledgement, by the
Mashelkar Committee, was based on solid research and was substantiated. While
we may disagree with the conclusions that he arrived at, the fact that it was
well-argued is not, I believe, at dispute. The dispute is based on the
questionable assumption that the source of funding of his research directly or
indirectly affected his views and biased his conclusions. There is nothing to
support that assumption, especially given that he has held those views even
outside of that report.  Funding of research and "mercenerisation" of research
are different, and I see no evidence to Mr. Basheer's research being the
latter.  In any case, even Mr. Chan accepts that.  Additionally, in case of
doubt, I believe that he ought be given the benefit of the same.  I hope you
agree.  Please note that these are my personal views, and not that of the
organising committee.  Finally, I must thank you for taking enough interest in
the Symposium to respond!
Regards,
Pranesh
On 4/11/08, Daya Shanker < daya.shanker@deakin.edu.au[1]> wrote:

Dear Pranesh
It appears to be a very nice group of people but I do not see why Shamnad
Basheer should be there. Didn't we discuss his role during the Karnataka High
Court's decision in Novartis and his close association with the pharmaceutical
industry? If a research output is based on the payment made by the industry,
it destroys total sense of ethics and morality and definitely academic nature
of the conference unless it is to provide legitimacy to such research. I have
nothing personal against him or anybody but any mercenerisation of research
destroys the total fabric of academic morality.

daya shankerAAt 07:07 AM 9/04/2008, Pranesh Prakash wrote:

Dear All,
National Law School of India Review, the bi-annual journal of the National Law
School, Bangalore is organising the First NLSIR Symposium on the "Challenges
to India's Patent Regime". The Symposium is being held from 12th – 13th April
(Saturday and Sunday) at the NLSIU campus in Nagarbhavi, Bangalore and is
intended to promote healthy debate and discussion amongst all the stakeholders
involved.
The Symposium has been structured to discuss the cutting edge issues relating
to the Indian patent regime. Over four sessions, it looks to cover the
theoretical justifications for patents, India's role as a country which is a
signatory to TRIPS, the contentious issue of pharmaceutical patents and
finally an analysis of possible judicial attitudes towards patent law and
legislation in India. The Symposium brings together judges of the Supreme
Court, patent attorneys from the USA, senior advocates, technical experts,
ideologues and activists to facilitate constructive discussion of the issues
set out and the best way forward for India's patent law. Prominent speakers
include –
Judiciary
Justice AR Lakshmanan, Chairman Law Commission of India; Justice PP Naolekar,
Judge Supreme Court of India; Justice Ravindra Bhat, Judge Delhi High Court;
Justice DV Shylendra Kumar, Judge Karnataka High Court
Academics
Dr. Anil Gupta, IIM Ahmedabad; Shamnad Basheer, Oxford IP Research Centre;
Srividhya Raghavan, Oklahoma University; T. Ramakrishna, NLSIU; Sudhir
Krishnaswamy, NLSIU
Bar
Feroz Ali Khader, Advocate High Court of Madras; Aditya Sondhi, Advocate
Karnataka High Court; Vinay Aravind, Poovayya & Poovayya
Public Interest
Leena Menghaney, Access Campaign Manager - India, MSF; Mr. Gopa Kumar, CENTAD;
Dr. Anand Grover, Director, Lawyers' Collective
For registration, please contact Apurva Rai, +919886208285.   For more details
visit – http://www.nlsir.in/symposium.htm[2] or contact Arghya Sengupta,
+919886023232.
Regards,
Pranesh Prakash
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===References:===
  1. mailto:daya.shanker@deakin.edu.au
  2. http://www.nlsir.in/symposium.htm
  3. mailto:commons-law@sarai.net
  4. https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
  5. https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law