From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Mon Jan 07 2008 - 12:28:17 EST
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 10:55:16 -0500 From: GDAEAnnounce@tufts.edu Subject: New Working Paper on IP in Brazil, Mexico The Politics of Patents and Drugs in Brazil and Mexico: The Industrial Bases of Health Activism GDAE Working Paper No. 07-05 http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/07-05PoliticsOfPatents.pdfBy Ken Shadlen To comply with their international obligations, both Brazil and Mexico introduced regimes for pharmaceutical patents in the 1990s. While both countries initially implemented intellectual property (IP) systems that favored the interests of the transnational, innovation-based pharmaceutical sector, the two countries paths have diverged in dramatic fashion in recent years. In Brazil, the government responded to the high price of drugs and societal demands to reform the IP system by making it more difficult to obtain private ownership over knowledge and by increasing the rights of third parties to access and use knowledge. In Mexico, the response to similar demands has been to raise impediments to third parties’ rights of access and use and effectively to extend the periods of protection granted to patent-owners. GDAE Research Fellow Ken Shadlen explores these differences from a political economy perspective. In Brazil, the combination of a strong, interested, and active Ministry of Health and a more autonomous local pharmaceutical sector created a propitious environment for initiatives to reform the IP system. In Mexico, the subordination of the Secretariat of Health and fundamental transformations of the local industrial sector meant that calls to reform the IP system were not well-received. Instead, the reform project in Mexico became commandeered by IP owners and ultimately had the perverse effect of reinforcing and strengthening the system that was being challenged. The paper concludes by underscoring the importance of pharmaceutical industries for development. The findings suggest that the existence of independent pharmaceutical sectors may not just be beneficial for industrial development, but also for promoting public health and pursuing humanitarian goals. The key factor for explaining efforts to reform patent systems to increase access to drugs is the presence of an autonomous national pharmaceutical industry that is available as an alliance partner for those pushing for such reforms. Thus, the key to IP-for-humanitarianism is maintenance of some degree of IP-for-industrialization. GDAE Working Paper No. 07-05 http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/07-05PoliticsOfPatents.pdf For more on GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/globalization.html
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