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September 9, 2009

Alert: USPTO-Pfizer pushing for TRIPS Plus measures in India

"The United States Patent and Trademark Office, in collaboration with the Pfizer Limited, is organizing a meeting in India for NGO's and the media titled “Intellectual Property and Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry” from 2:30-5:30 p.m. at the Taj President Hotel in Mumbai on September 9, 2009. The meeting is being organized with the assistance of the US Embassy in India.

On the agenda are controversial TRIPS Plus measures such as Data Exclusivity and Patent Linkage which are designed to delay the registration of generic medicines by several years, besides seriously interfering with the implementation of public health safeguards such as compulsory licensing. ...

It is important to note that the most recent report of the UN Special Rapportuer on the RIght to Health has highlighted concerns with the adverse impact of such TRIPS-plus measures on access to treatment and has recommended that developing countries not adopt these. See http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G09/127/11/PDF/G0912711.pdf?OpenElement [note: link to Oxfam in the original].

The WHO has also cautioned developing and least developed countries against such provisions. See http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/Global_Trade_and_Health_GTH_No3.pdf ...

The fact is that for incremental innovation by Indian companies the market and not patents is the driving force. This is borne out by the development of the three –in- one AIDS pill – one of the most revolutionary innovations in AIDS treatment for the developing world. That the individual compounds were not patented in India made combining them possible."

Read more in Commons-Law, September 9, 2009.

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