Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The TRIPS Agreement: Shining the Spotlight on the Potential Schism between
Trade and Health
the trIPS agreement was one of the many agreements that resulted from the
Uruguay round multilateral trade negotiations, which took place from 1986 to 1994.
It covers a range of intellectual property issues such as patents, trademarks, industrial
design, and copyright. It requires each member state to maintain sufficient procedures
and remedies within its domestic law to ensure the protection of intellectual property
for both domestic and foreign rights holders. More specifically with regard to
pharmaceuticals, there are four minimum legal obligations. First, pharmaceutical
products and micro-organisms are patentable for up to 20 years from the date the
inventor files for patent application. Second, discrimination against patent rights for
imported products is not permitted. third, exclusive marketing rights are granted
until patent expiry. Fourth, there is a transitional period of one year, which can
be extended to up to ten years, for developing countries without pharmaceutical
product patents (redwood 1995). according to the wto (undated), its 'framework
ensures that membership in the wto entails accepting all the results of the round,
without exception', so members must comply with the trIPS requirements as part
of membership conditionality.
the trIPS agreement does, however, include provisions that allow developing
countries some breathing space in terms of its applicability. In theory, rodrik's
call for selective disengagement provisions is embedded into the agreement. For
one, the agreement allows developing countries a general transition period of up
to five years to amend their patent legislation so that it meets WTO standards. A
longer time, up to ten years, is allowed for developing countries without prior patent
protection for pharmaceutical products, such as countries that have 'process' patents
in place but no protection for the final product. Least developed countries (lDcs)
were originally given up to eleven years, later extended to 2016 when it became
obvious that the initial timeline was unrealistic for implementation. there is still
some reasonable doubt that even these extended deadlines will be met. However,
political and economic realities easily deter countries from making use of these
provisions.
Advocates of the TRIPS Agreement argue that sufficiently applied pharmaceutical
patent regimes are a sine qua non for large multinational pharmaceutical firms to
invest resources in the r&D of new drug therapies. but r&D expenditure does not
even remotely address the needs of developing countries. If trends are examined,
little potential is seen for the reallocation of activities toward diseases of the poorest
countries. Médecins Sans Frontières ([MSF] 2003) estimates that 90 percent
estimates that 90 percent
of the world's health r&D expenditure is devoted to conditions that affect just
10 percent of the world's population, with priority conditional upon ability to pay.
This prioritisation of diseases affecting the developed world is reflected in the fact
that of 1393 new drugs approved between 1975 and 1999 only 13 were specifically
indicated for tropical diseases (trouiller et al. 2002). tropical diseases largely affect
([MSF] 2003) estimates that 90 percent
. tropical diseases largely affect
poor populations and account for 12 percent of the global disease burden (MSF 2001).
 
 
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