Bonum Certa Men Certa

When Life of a Patent is the Death of a Person

Life



Summary: News about controversial patents on genes, life-saving drugs, and TRIPS in ACTA

THIS post presents some news where patents are a matter of life and death.

US Government Argues in Court that Isolated Genes are Unpatentable (patents on genes were also covered in [1, 2])

In March, 2010, District Court Judge Robert Sweet held Myriad's gene patent claims invalid for failing to satisfy the subject matter eligibility requirements of 35 U.S.C. 101. The ruling was directed toward claims that cover particular isolated DNA molecules (genes) and processes of detecting and screening for those genes, but was written broadly enough to essentially invalidate all patents covering genes that were isolated from an organism.

[...]
Thus, the patent laws embrace gene replacement therapies, engineered biologic drugs, methods of modifying the properties of plants or generating biofuels, and similar advanced applications of biotechnology. Crossing the threshold of section 101, however, requires something more than identifying and isolating what has always existed in nature, no matter how difficult or useful that discovery may be.


Big Pharma Stranglehold: Thwarting India As Independent Maker Of Blockbuster HIV Drugs? ("neocolonialism kills AIDS," remarks Dr. Glyn Moody)

Until recently, the pharmaceutical giants were little interested in the developing world, while looking almost exclusively to the profitable United States and European markets. But now, their momentum is substantially slowing down there mainly due to stiff costs to renew product pipelines, generic competition, recent economic downturn and cost-conscious government and commercial payers. Additionally, over the next five years, drug companies will lose patent protection of products worth US$140 billion in yearly sales [1]. As a result, the brand industry is increasingly looking to the emerging markets of fast-growing middle-income countries (including India, China, Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Colombia, Egypt, Vietnam and Turkey) where a number of well-off elites, who can afford out-of-pocket spending (about 300 million people in India, at least 800 million in China), now live. Expanding middle classes in such countries are not only spending more on healthcare, but their rising wealth is contributing to increased rates of chronic diseases once limited to the western markets. Without counting that, sales of prescription drugs are forecast to wane in the United States as an effect of new health-care legislation that could lower the price of medicines. This is adding pressure on drug makers’ US businesses.

[...]

Cheap brand and branded generics to rural India

Now that big pharma industry is pushing forward its breakthrough in India, the acquisitions of local firms, as just mentioned, have resulted in a multi-pronged, deeply profitable strategy wherein the impact of lower prices applied to end products is offset by taking advantage of the lower manufacturing, distribution and marketing costs in the country.

Until recently, the brand companies doing drug business in emerging economies have focused mostly on the wealthy and middle class. Now, they are turning also to the “bottom of the pyramid” and are conducting an exercise in how to cut prices down to seduce poorer customers and rural villagers in India while still turning a profit. To this aim, nearly all companies have boosted their sales forces (as an example, Abbott now employs approximately 10,000 people across all of its country businesses) [8]. Reportedly, these pitchmen are fanning out in rural India, where they train doctors and patients also hoping to capitalise on a $19.5 billion Indian public healthcare programme for 742 million villagers [10].

In short, the multinational companies are selling some branded treatments to Indian customers at lower-than-Western prices, while licensing cheap therapies from local firms (the so-called branded generics) to build portfolios of low-cost medicines [4]. Through the branded generics (90 percent of drug sales), the multinationals are deeply involved in the current rise of India’s pharmaceutical market [11]. It comes as no surprise that in countries where generic drugs may frequently be substandard or fake, selling generics under the brand of a leading enterprise can look to doctors and patients as a more trustworthy and reliable option. The branded generics market is generating nearly $8 billion in pharmaceutical sales this year, a figure that is expected to more than double by 2015 [11].


USTR positions in China WTO TRIPS dispute at odds with talking points on ACTA flexibility ("ACTA: Brazil, Ecuador and India made interventions on ACTA at WTO TRIPS Council," summarises ThiruGeneva in this first part of Knowledge Ecology International coverage on ACTA in USTR, Brazil, and India)

In a dispute between the United States and Canada over the enforcement of intellectual property rights, Article 1.1 of the TRIPS played an important role. See: WTO DISPUTE DS362, China — Measures Affecting the Protection and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.

In the US/China WTO dispute, the USTR took the position that parties have an obligation to "give effect to the provisions of the Agreement," and that "Article 1.1 deals with the method by which a Member implements TRIPS Agreement obligations, not whether or to what extent a Member should implement them in the first place."

One United States pleading in this dispute mentioned Article 1.1 of the TRIPS 15 times...


Brazilian intervention at TRIPS Council: ACTA

Extracts of India's Intervention to the WTO TRIPS Council: ACTA (bricking BRIC)

On Wednesday, 27 October 2010, the WTO TRIPS Council held its annual review of the Paragraph 6 System. IP-Watch has a link to the detailed program of the annual review. This annual review of the Paragraph 6 system lasted till around 8 PM Geneva time. More details of this closed door meeting will be provided in due course. Sources close to the negotiations indicate that Canada provided a comprehensive overview of its implementation of the Paragraph 6 system, Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR). Rwanda was not present at this review; neither was Ghana, a country which has tried unsuccessfully to make use of Paragraph 6. After 8 PM, the TRIPS Council resumed and certain Members took the floor to discuss ACTA. Here are some key extracts from the intervention made by India yesterday concerning ACTA.


TRIPS Council Discusses Efficacy Of ACTA, Public Health Amendment (for more on ACTA and TRIPS see this video which slams TRIPS [1, 2, 3, 4])

ACTA “completely bypasses the existing multilateral processes provided in particular by the WTO and WIPO” as well as providing for much higher level enforcement than called for under TRIPS, India said in prepared remarks. It is already doing so with a “startling” decision to overturn a decision of the WTO dispute settlement on a US-China dispute over counterfeiting and copyright piracy (IPW, WTO/TRIPS, 26 January 2010), India said. ACTA reinterprets the definition of “commercial scale” to mean “any activity carried out for a direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage” while the WTO recently determined that it meant a particular level of activity, the statement said.

As “ACTA members account for about 70% of world trade,” there is a risk the agreement will “undermine trade liberalisation when there already are several threats to the multilateral trading system in the form of trade protectionist measures in wake the of the economic crisis and a simmering currency issue,” India added. For this reason, India requested that “Enforcement Trends” be discussed at this TRIPS Council meeting, despite having a position in the past that enforcement should not be a permanent TRIPS agenda item, they said.

[...]

A WTO source said ACTA parties largely argued the agreement “does not affect TRIPS and that action is needed to tackle the real dangers arising from counterfeit products such as medicines and spare parts.”


Drugs counterfeiting prevention has had ACTA misused to push for draconian copyright law, under the guise of saving lives.

Recent Techrights' Posts

"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
 
How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day