[Ip-health] Venezuela to "invalidate" some drug patents

[Ben Krohmal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR2009062101564.html?hpid%3Dsec-health&sub=AR

Very flawed article.  Unclear what's really going on:


Pharmaceutical patents targeted in Venezuela
The Associated Press
June 21, 2009

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan officials plan to invalidate some
pharmaceutical patents and allow domestic manufacturers to produce
licensed medicines, an action that could cause shortages and scare off
foreign investment, industry leaders said Sunday.

Edgar Salas, president of Venezuela's pharmaceutical business chamber,
warned that abolishing patents could prompt the world's largest drug
manufacturers to stop exporting medicines to Venezuela.

"This could create obstacles to importing the newest medicines," Salas said.

Commerce Minister Eduardo Saman - a close confidant of President Hugo
Chavez - announced on Saturday that Venezuela's government would annul
patents on some medicines under a reform of existing intellectual
property laws.

Saman said the measure is aimed at making the interests of powerful
drug companies secondary to the needs of Venezuelans suffering from
diseases such as cancer or AIDS.

"We cannot allow transnational medicine companies to impose their
rights on the Venezuelan people," Saman told state television.
"Patents have become a barrier to production and we cannot allow
barriers to the access of medicine."

Saman did not specify which patents would be annulled.

Venezuela imports most of its medicines