[Ip-health] Ecuador's compulsory licensing plans, and alternative vision for IP

[peter maybarduk]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
In July of this year, Ecuador=92s President Rafael Correa articulated a
vision of intellectual property as =93a mechanism for development for
the people.=94  His speech before a live audience on the nationally
televised program "Enlace Ciudadano" ("Citizen Connection") announced
a new state policy of using compulsory licenses to improve access to
medicines.

I=92ve translated an excerpt below. The clip is available (in Spanish
and sign language) on YouTube, here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3D9cnsOctJ0wc, as well as the homepage of the Ecuadorean Intellectual
Property Institute (IEPI, Ecuador=92s patent office), here: http://
www.iepi.gov.ec/.

Last week, President Correa announced plans to use compulsory
licenses to facilitate the domestic production of medicines.  Here is
the story in El Universo, courtesy of Judit Rius Sanjuan: http://
www.eluniverso.com/2009/09/26/1/1355/ecuador-eliminara-patentes-
medicamentos.html?p=3D1355&m=3D861).

Correa, an economist recently elected to a second term (with a simple
majority and a twenty-three point lead over his closest competitor),
has charged high-ranking officials in his administration to implement
the policy.

Nevertheless, we have heard reports of multinational pharmaceutical
companies organizing behind the scenes to disrupt the licensing
policy before it can take effect.  To realize President Correa=92s
vision, Ecuador needs the support of the global access to medicines
movement.

To show your support and find out how you can help, write:

Essential Action, peter.maybarduk@essentialinformation.org and

Health Action International Ecuador, teranj_aisec@cablemodem.com.ec

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 From =93Enlace Ciudadano,=94 July 16, 2009:

"Therefore, the subject of intellectual property is tremendously
important.  What is our vision?  When something has been invented or
discovered, the more people that use it, the better.   For example, a
medicine.  We're talking about human rights.  Do you think it's
ethically sustainable that if a cure for cancer is invented, people
could continue to die because they don't have the resources to pay?
That because the medicine has a registered property right, and
because I, Laboratory X, invested in its development, you have to pay
me $2,000 for each pill?

This cannot be.  When making the [gestures to indicate a "single"]
pill costs far less.  And it's to save lives.    Especially in these
situations, we have to change our conception of property; the
traditional conception, the neoliberal conception.   Compa=F1eros, we
are discussing all of this.

There is, in our legislation, what they call compulsory licensing.
I, as President, can order that we issue a compulsory license for
Brand X, so they can copy this medicine and make generics, and the
people have access to this medicine, to health, to a cure for their
illness.  [Applause.]  And this is exactly what we are going to begin
to do, with respect to medicines, with respect to agrochemicals, with
respect to everything possible."

. . . [Correa addresses non-profit motives that also drive innovation
("vocation" and "dedication"), and cites universities as key centers
of research and innovation in the public interest.] . . .

"Intellectual property is a mechanism for development for the
people.  This is our vision of intellectual property.  It's not a
mechanism to enrich the pharmaceutical or agrochemical companies.
It's a mechanism for development for the people."