[FYI] (Fwd) US: FC: "Weakened intellectual property rights ends in suffering, death?"

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

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Date sent:      	Wed, 20 Nov 2002 13:58:56 -0500
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Weakened intellectual property rights ends in suffering, death?
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com




Death and Suffering as the Unintended Consequences of Trade
Negotiations By Tom Giovanetti

If the study of public policy teaches us anything, it is that
political solutions usually have unintended and frequently negative
consequences. This is known as the "Law of Unintended Consequences,"
which asserts that we cannot always predict the results of a change in
government policy.

Next week, at the next round of negotiations for the Doha Declaration
on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), the
United States, at the hands of U.S. Trade Representative, Robert
Zoellick, is apparently going to stumble into the Law of Unintended
Consequences, and the result could be the unnecessary death and
suffering of thousands of people in the future.

There is a great deal of death and suffering going on in the Third
World as a result of such diseases as AIDs. The solution is the
continued innovation and better distribution of lifesaving
pharmaceutical products, as well as the long-term development of these
countries. The pharmaceutical industry has developed a number of drugs
that successfully treat, to various degrees, AIDs and its related
complexes, and these companies are doing everything they can to get
these drugs to needy countries at very low prices?sometimes even for
free. More often than not, it is not the availability of low-cost
drugs that is the problem in those countries?it is the utter lack of a
distribution network, and the lack of adequate health care providers
to make effective use of the drugs that have been made available.

Big, profitable pharmaceutical companies are the best friends an AIDs
victim in a Third World country could ever have. They are innovating
the drugs, and making them available. These companies should be hailed
as heroes in the global fight against AIDs.

But left-leaning activists, who always seem to see the United States
and capitalism as the source of the world's problems, see things
differently. They think that the U.S., and pharmaceutical companies,
are the villains, and they are proposing with breathtaking boldness
the legalized theft of drug patents by Third World countries.

The vehicle for this assault has been paragraph 6 of the declaration
promulgated at the WTO meeting in Doha. It states that the poorest
countries would be entitled to declare a public health emergency and
compel the licensing of drugs to treat HIV, malaria and tuberculosis ?
diseases that are particular scourges of the developing world. It is
important to state that no one, including the pharmaceutical industry,
objects to this provision.

However, in the current round of TRIPs negotiations, activists are
asserting the right of any developing country to seize any patent, or
import any generic drug, so long as it claims that is has a public
health crisis. They would not confine this right to the three diseases
specified at Doha. This represents a global assault on intellectual
property of unprecedented proportions. And the U.S. position,
suggested by Representative Zoellick's statements, is apparently to
cave in to these radical demands. Although he has stated that the US
does not share the activists' interpretation of the declaration, he
has not insisted on legally-binding language that would limit the
seizure of patents to TB, HIV and malaria.

To weaken international patent protection and allow any developing
country to steal and nationalize the intellectual property of
pharmaceutical companies will be perhaps the most glaring and
destructive example of the Law of Unintended Consequences in recent
memory. If Representative Zoellick caves in to the radical activists,
it will be the end of intellectual property protection in the Third
World.

Strong intellectual property protection is a hallmark of every
advanced economy. Any hope these countries have of "developing" is at
least partially dependent on their development of private property
protection, including intellectual property protection. Without
intellectual property protection, these Third World countries will
never develop to their full economic potential. Without intellectual
property protection, a country is not developing?it is stagnant.

Perhaps even more important, if the property rights of drug companies
can be legally stripped away, they will become less profitable, which
is perhaps an ancillary goal of the activists. Why should a company
spend millions of dollars to develop a new drug if a dozen or so
countries can immediately steal the patent and begin producing bootleg
versions of the drug, with the blessing of the U.S. government?

For the United States to endorse the legalized theft of intellectual
property will betray our principles, set a bad example for developing
countries, and result in fewer new drugs created. And that means
diseases not cured and pain not relieved in the United States, as well
as the developing world.

__________________
Tom Giovanetti is president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a
public policy think tank based in Dallas, Texas.




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