[Ip-health] Reuters- Chávez wants to end medicine patents

[Terri - Louise Beswick]

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Boston Globe / Home / News / World / Latin America/Caribbean



Chávez wants to end medicine patents



Reuters / June 22, 2009



CARACAS - President Hugo Chávez has vowed to shake up the rules governing intellectual property rights on medicines and other products in Venezuela, the socialist's latest move against the private sector.



"A song is intellectual property, but an invention or a scientific discovery should be knowledge for the world, especially medicine,'' Chávez said late Saturday.



"That a laboratory does not allow us to make a medicine because they have the patent, no, no, no,'' Chávez said.



Chávez, who has nationalized many Venezuela industries and is critical of the private sector, ordered his trade minister to analyze the patent rules in the OPEC nation.



"Patents have become a barrier to production, and we cannot allow them to be barriers to medicine, to life, to agriculture,'' said the minister, Eduardo Saman, who previously headed Venezuela's patent agency.



"We are revising all the doctrines and laws related to patents, which should be compatible with the international treaties that we have signed and respect and honor.''



Chávez recently criticized Swedish packaging maker Tetra Pak, saying its patents on cartons were limiting production in Venezuela.



© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.



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ts_to_end_medicine_patents/