Compulsory license
Thailand violates drug patents for its own profit
IPN Opinion article
Thailand claims that its decision to issue compulsory licenses for several western-owned medicines is in the public interest. However, this policy risks increasing already serious resistance to AIDS medicines, with terrible implications for public health.
Compulsory social responsibility
IPN Opinion article
Martin Krause, dean of ESEADE Business School in Argentina, writes in The Washington Times that Latin American governments are undermining the market for new AIDS medicines with their populist policies of price controls and compulsory licences.
NGOs on Drugs
IPN Opinion article
Alec van Gelder writes in the Wall Street Journal Europe that the proposals to circumvent property rights made by the self-styled "friends of development", a group of NGOs and Governments from poorer countries, are misguided in their attempts to improve access to medicines, among other things.
Entire intellectual property system could easily fall
IPN Opinion article
Discusses patents, compulsory licensing and trade
A Mexican Mistake?
IPN Opinion article
A year and a half ago in Doha, Qatar, long before it became the center of the Iraqi war effort, the war on AIDS was supposed to be re-charged by the World Trade Organization. At the Doha WTO Ministerial meeting an agreement was reached permitting poor countries to disregard patent protections for drugs designed to treat diseases that posed a special burden, an \"emergency\", on those impoverished societies. What the ministers had in mind in allowing the compulsory licensing of drugs was improving access to treatments for malaria and AIDS in countries like Benin and Botswana that have been hit hardest by disease epidemics. But instead the Doha declaration, as it is now known, has been used by mid-income countries such as Egypt and Peru for improving access to lifestyle drugs like Viagra.
It's all bad news on Aids drug research
IPN Opinion article
There has been widespread applause for the recent findings of the British government's Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, which argues that patents block essential drug access and intellectual property rights offer few advantages to developing countries. But the real victims of poverty and disease are already worse off because of previous attacks on intellectual property.
Compulsory licensing no solution to health problems in poor countries, say experts from India, Argentina, Canada and South Africa.
IPN Opinion article
In a collection of papers published today, a group of experts from around the world contradict the claim that compulsory licensing of 'essential' medicines will benefit the world's poor. They point out that patents and other forms of intellectual property are an essential component in economic development. Interfering with intellectual property by compulsory licensing or price controls will undermine investments and cause more harm than good. They call instead for stronger protection of intellectual property globally.
The compulsory licensing anomaly
IPN Opinion article
If compulsory licensing is retained as a response to perceptions about market failure, it is necessary also to recognise the costs of state failure. As of now, the Uruguay Round agreement permits too much discretion to governments on compulsory licensing, with 'public interest' a deliciously vague expression. As a second-best solution, this needs to be disciplined. The powers granted for public non-commercial use are too broad and there are no guidelines on compensation and royalty payments. While the TRIPS agreement lays down a framework, it is unrealistic to expect that everything should be laid down in such an agreement. However, too much discretion is also undesirable as it leads to arbitrariness. If there is one lesson that emerges from the development experience of developing countries, it is that the costs of arbitrary government decision-making can be devastating. The market is inherently superior. While this is a message that extends to all sectors, it is particularly true of the pharmaceutical sector. Hence a review of TRIPS is in order.
TRIPS and Healthcare: Rethinking the Debate
IPN Opinion article
In this paper, a group of experts from around the world contradict the claim that compulsory licensing of 'essential' medicines will benefit the world's poor. They point out that patents and other forms of intellectual property are an essential component in economic development. Interfering with intellectual property by compulsory licensing or price controls will undermine investments and cause more harm than good. They call instead for stronger protection of intellectual property globally.
