On February 9, 2017, KEI filed written comments to the Office of the United States Trade Representative’s Special 301 Review process.
The Special 301 Review is an annual process carried out by the USTR to, “to identify countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) or deny fair and equitable market access to U.S. persons who rely on intellectual property protection.”
In December 2016, during the twilight of President Barack Obama’s 44th presidency, the World Trade Organization (WTO) conducted a Trade Policy Review (TPR) of the United States of America. All members of the WTO are subject to review under the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM). The TPRM takes place in the “Trade Policy Review Body which is actually the WTO General Council — comprising the WTO’s full membership — operating under special rules and procedures” (Source: WTO, Trade Policy Reviews: Brief Introduction).
On Thursday, 15 December 2016, South Africa delivered this poignant, closing statement at WIPO’s Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP). Negotiations broke down on the issue of future work, as the European Union and Group B refused to permit discussions of the Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines at future sessions of the SCP.
According to the WIPO website,
On Wednesday, 9 November 2016, the European Union delivered the following statement at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council’s discussions of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel Report on Access to Medicines.
UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL’S HIGH LEVEL PANEL REPORT ON ACCESS TO MEDICINES
The European Commission takes note of the contribution provided by the Report of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines.
On September 10, 2015, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), wrote to USTR expressing alarm at the European Union support of an indefinite extension of a WTO waiver of obligations to grant patents on pharmaceuticals for UN defined least developed countries (LDCs). In 2015, there were 954 million persons living in LDCs, with a per capita income of $964, according to the World Bank. The EU had aligned itself with health advocates trying to protect the bottom billion access to life saving medicines.
(More on Colombia here: /colombia)
In response to reports of USTR pressure on Colombia’s potential compulsory license for imatinib, Senators Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have sent a letter to USTR objecting “to any efforts to protect the public health of Colombians in a way that is appropriate, effective, and consistent with the country’s trade and public health obligations,” and condemning as unconscionable “that any representatives of the U.S. government would threaten to rescind funding for Colombia’s peace iniative if a compulsory license for Glivec were issued.” Continue Reading
Yesterday, Colombia’s W Radio aired an interview with Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, where he was asked about the reports of pressure on Colombia from the Senate Finance Committee, which he chairs, with regard to the compulsory license process for the expensive leukemia drug, imatinib.
Attached is a letter that KEI, Public Citizen, Oxfam America and Health GAP have sent to Senator Hatch, via the Senate Finance Committee, objecting to the pressure his office has put on Colombia over a compulsory license on patents held by Novartis for the cancer drug Gleevec. This refers to the accounts of pressure from Hatch’s office that are described in two letters from the Colombia Embassy in Washington, dated April 27 and April 28, which were recently leaked. Continue Reading
In early March 2016, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) TRIPS Council discussed “Intellectual Property and Innovation: Education and Diffusion”. The following delegations co-sponsored discussion of this item on Education and Diffusion – Australia, European Union, Switzerland, United States, Japan, Singapore, Peru, Russian Federation, Chinese Taipei and Hong Kong China.