[Ip-health] The Times of India: "In defence of patents"

[Malini Aisola]

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"Last year, a WHO-designated team assessed the Junta's actions and later
issued a brief report legitimising the government's actions, which was
followed by a how-to guide for countries to waive their international
obligations and issue compulsory licences.

This report is feeding into a WHO-initiated Intergovernmental Working
Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and IP formed in 2006. From
its inception the IGWG has been an attempt for health bureaucrats and
the activists that advise them to rewrite --- and under-mine --- global
IP rules. The activists are now using their campaign against IP on
medicines as a precedent to continue their assault on IP;..."


In defence of patents
by Tim Wilson

28 Apr 2008

Intellectual Property (IP) has always been a niche public policy area
understood best by policy wonks and lawyers. Unless there is a major
controversy, IP tends to escape public consciousness. But that is
changing. Over the past few years campaigns to undermine IP have
increased and are now reaching a fever pitch.

IP is essential because it provides the property rights needed for
research and development to attract investment with the prospect of a
long-term dividend. Undermining IP is equivalent to the traditional
socialist ethos --- divvy the spoils of today's research and
development, rather than focusing on expanding it. And a lot is at stake
--- according to the most recent figures from the United Nations, the
Indian patent registry receives more than 90,000 applications for
patentable inven-tions each year. In spite of this significant
contribution, there has been a global campaign to undermine IP rights by
a group of anti-market activists, self-interested politicians, vested
interests, and more recently, the infiltrated World Health Organisation
(WHO).

Innovative medicines have been one of the big targets. These activists
have argued that IP rights increase the cost of medicines for the
world's poor. Yet they ignore that one of the biggest contributors to
increasing costs is actually government-imposed taxes and tariffs that
raise the price of life-saving medicines. For instance, in India the
combined taxes and tariffs on imported medicines are 55 per cent; in
China, they are 28 per cent.

But this reality has not stopped governments acting to undermine IP. In
early 2007, the then Thai military government waived the patents of
three patented medicines through a process called "compulsory
licensing". Compulsory licensing is an instrument recognised under the
World Trade Organisation's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, and grants governments the ability to
licence the production of patented products "in the case of a national
emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency or in cases of
public non-commercial use".

Now the WHO has waded into the debate. Last year, a WHO-designated team
assessed the Junta's actions and later issued a brief report
legitimising the government's actions, which was followed by a how-to
guide for countries to waive their international obligations and issue
compulsory licences.

This report is feeding into a WHO-initiated Intergovernmental Working
Group (IGWG) on Public Health, Innovation and IP formed in 2006. From
its inception the IGWG has been an attempt for health bureaucrats and
the activists that advise them to rewrite --- and under-mine --- global
IP rules. The activists are now using their campaign against IP on
medicines as a precedent to continue their assault on IP; and global
warming has become the new battleground.

In a joint statement at the 2007 G8 summit, the governments of Brazil,
China, India, Mexico and South Africa called for an agreement to assist
in compulsory licensing the IP related to carbon dioxide
emission-mitigating technology being developed in wealthy countries.

In subsequent media reports the officials argued an agreement is needed
"paralleling the successful agreement on compulsory licensing of
pharmaceuticals". Similar themes appeared in a resolution passed by the
European Parliament in November last year recommending a study to assess
amending TRIPS "to allow for the compulsory licensing of environmentally
necessary technologies".

And the tragedy is that those who are likely to suffer most are the
world's poor. Technology transfer is also vital for developing countries
to grow their economies and improve their standards of health and the
environment. A 2006 World Bank study and a 1998 Inter-national Energy
Agency/UNEP study have identified that strengthening IP rights assists
in technology transfer.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation has designated 2008 as the
year for "celebrating innovation and promoting respect for IP". With the
IGWG convening in Geneva in a few days' time and the assault on IP on
climate-friendly technologies, World IP Day --- which was on Saturday
--- increasingly seems to be an occasion to reflect on IP's demise.

The writer is director of the IP and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of
Public Affairs in Melbourne.


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Malini Aisola

Knowledge Ecology International

1621 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA

Tel.:  +1.202.332.2670 Fax: +1.202.332.2673