Between November 2006 and January 2007, Thailand issued compulsory licenses for two AIDS drugs (efavirnz and the combination of lopinavir+ritonavir) and one antihypertension drug (clopidegrel). The pharmaceutical industry has vehemently objected to these compulsory licenses, and has sought the US… Continue Reading
This is Andrew Pollack’s recent story on Gilead’s new $130 per pill (use daily) for pulmonary arterial hypertension. The price of this drug, which is a once daily pill, is roughly the average per capita income in the United States, leaving nothing else for food, housing, clothing or having a beer at the local bar.
Ted Miller writes about sports in the Seattle PI (a paper I delivered door to door a long time ago). This is his column Intellectual property law begets insanity.
The John Edwards campaign has issued a statement endorsing prizes as an “alternative to patent monopolies” for new drugs and other inventions. Details from the campaign are here. This is a good start. My comment in the Huffington Post is here: John Edwards: Prizes, Not Patent Monopolies.
The negotiations on the development agenda text have progressed, and as of last evening, it appears as though the term “access to knowledge” is now without brackets. The relevant paragraph now reads as follows:
“To initiate discussions on how, within WIPO’s mandate, to further facilitate access to knowledge and technology for developing countries and LDCs to foster creativity and innovation and to strengthen such existing activities within WIPO.”
Why are there brackets on A2K?
Paragraph 3 of Cluster B reads:
3. To discuss possible new initatives and strengthen existing mechanisms within WIPO to facilitate [access to knowledge] and technology for developing countries and LDCs and to foster creativity and innovation within WIPO’s mandate.
I talked with Canada during to break, to see where they stood. I can report that Canada was completely negative about removing the brackets from [access to knowledge].
The Algerian coordinator of the African Group just outlined the state of play on the language concerning access to knowledge.
As reported previously, the language of paragraph 3 of Cluster B reads:
3. To discuss possible new initatives and strengthen existing mechanisms within WIPO to facilitate [access to knowledge] and technology for developing countries and LDCs and to foster creativity and innovation within WIPO’s mandate.
This decision by the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) involves a dispute over the proper remedy for the importation of various infringing chips made by Qualcom that are used in cell phones. The Qualcom chips infringe on patents held by Broadcom.
This is a link to David Serafino’s blog of the May 30 brownbag discussion on new U.S. trade policy and access to medicine. David’s blog includes comments from a number of persons, including Fabiana Jorge of MFJ International, Rob Weissman of Essential Action, Stephanie Burgos of Oxfam, Brook Baker from Health Gap, Shawn Brown of GPHA, Matt Kavanaugh of Student Global AIDS Campaign, Buddhi Lokuge of Doctors Without Borders, and James Love of Knowledge Ecology International.