Intellectual Property and Public Health
International Agreements
The TRIPS Agreement sets out multilaterally-agreed minimum standards on intellectual property protection, and that the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health has already affirmed the rights of countries to take public health measures.
In 2005 TRIPS obliges all developing countries (except the least developed group) to apply patent protection to pharmaceutical products. In practice there are only a few developing countries that have yet to implement the necessary legislation.
Increasingly, bilateral and other multilateral agreements define intellectual property standards that may exceed those laid down in TRIPS.
Documents
:: Exchange of letters between US congressmen, US Trade Representative and the government of Morocco regarding US-Morocco Free Trade Agreement
-
Letter from members of the US Congress to Office of the US Trade Representative | 15 July 2004
pdf, 322kb -
Letter from the Office of the US Trade Representative to Congress members | 19 July 2004
pdf, 509kb -
Letter of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Washington D.C. to Sandy Lavin, House of Representatives | 19 July 2004
pdf, 207kb
- Doha Derailed: A Progress Report on TRIPS and Access to Medicines. (August 2003)
-
TRIPS, Pharmaceutical Patents and Access to Essential Medicines: Seattle, Doha and beyond. Ellen t Hoen (2003) in Economics of AIDS and Access to HIV/AIDS Care in Developing Countries, Issues and Challenges (ANRS)
pdf, 946kb - Data Exclusivity in International trade Agreements: What consequences for Access to medicines (May 2004)
- Access to Medicines at Risk across the Globe: What to Watch Out For in Free Trade Agreements with the United States (Eng/Spa/Port) (May 2004)
- Trading Away Health: Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Agreement (Eng/Fr/Spa/Port) (December 2003)
-
The U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA): The Intellectual Property Provisions | Report of the Industry Functional Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Rights for Trade Policy Matters (IFAC-3) | 28 February 2003
- WTO Agreements and Public Health [pdf 788kb]
-
Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health [pdf 9kb]
-Text in HTML - Prognosis short term relief, Long term pain: The Future of generic medicines in India, (April 2005)
- Will the lifeline of affordable medicines for poor countries be cut? Consequences of medicines patenting in India (February 2005)
- An outline of the past, present and future protection of regulatory data
- The effects of the 2005 TRIPS implementation deadline on access to medicines