[Pharm-policy] US pressure in Dominican Republic Patent dispute

[James Love]

   I received this note today from a person in the Dominican
Republic, regarding US pressure the patent dispute.

   [snip]

The U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic has a campaign going on to
try to modify the proposal of the goverment for a new intelectual
property Law. This proposal was approved by the Senate on November and
it is pending of aproval by the House of Representatives.

As you may imagine the proposal contains provisions that will assure the
dominican patients acces to new drugs (cumpolsory licenses, Exhaust of
Rigths, etc.) and this has trigger the critics of the Embassy. They have
bring to the country so called experts on I.P. to question the proposed law,
Doris Long, a professor from John Marshall School of Chicago, prepare a
document to descredit the law. They use a foundation named Alexis de
Tocquerville to elaborate another document in the same direction.

The Embassy has make it clear to the Dominican Republic that the benefits
derivating from the Caribbean Basin Initiative (C.B.I.) and the S.G. P. and,
more important than this, the Law that will give this country and others of
the region the Parity with Mexico for the treatment of exports to the U.S.
of textiles manufacturies will be lost if the proposed law is approved
without modifications.

well I'll be in touch for details

   [snip]


James Love, Consumer Project on Technology    
P.O. Box 19367        | http://www.cptech.org 
Washington, DC 20036  | love@cptech.org       
Voice 202/387-8030    | Fax 202/234-5176