Image: Lumin Consulting for EFF (CC-BY)

USTR has proposed giving differential treatment to some of the TPP negotiating partners. Their plan would allow countries not classified as high income by the World Bank to delay implementation of some (not all) of the proposed TRIPS-Plus provisions that would block generic medicines from entering the market. James Love and Brook Baker have both given great comments on this, suggesting improvements to the use of the World Bank classification as a method of determining which countries have different obligations.

Upon hearing about the plan to use income-based formula to apply less stringent rules to some countries, I thought of Kajal Bhardwai’s talk at the 2012 International AIDS Conference. She argued that global treatment access decisions should not be based on national economic criteria, because many low-income people live in countries that will get cut out. Continue reading »

Inside U.S. Trade (Nov. 27, 2013) has reported that the U.S. floated a non-paper proposal for differential treatment and a transition period for developing country partners (Vietnam, Peru, Mexico, and Malaysia) with respect to some of its intellectual property demands in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations.  According to Inside U.S. Trade, the mid-November non-paper would give developing country partners a reprieve from three specific elements of the U.S.’s TPP demands:  (1) no mandatory requirement for patent term extensions to compensate for regulatory delays in patenting or regulatory approval, (2) no additional 3-year extensions of data exclusivity beyond the initial, presumptive 5-year period, plus potentially an explicit public health exception to data exclusivity and a push clause that would start the 5 year exclusivity from the first date of approval by a TPP partner if the developing country achieves fast-track product registration within 6 months of application, and (3) no requirement of patent-registration linkage that would automatically stay the processing of generic registration applications along long as there are measures permitting patent-holders the right to defend their patents in court. Continue reading »

Inside US Trade[1] and the USTR[2] have announced that the U.S. is floating new proposals on IP in its marathon Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations.  Although the U.S. touts its new proposals as being balanced, as prioritizing access to medicines, and as recognizing the interests of developing country negotiating partners, particularly, Peru, Vietnam, Mexico, and Malaysia, its actual proposals offer modest temporary respite at best from only a small fraction of U.S. demands.   Continue reading »