Impact of TRIPS in India


Book Description

In India today only 35 percent of people have access to medicines. This book examines the rise of drug prices in India, and develops a new healthcare model, which if implemented, would extend access to medicines to India's entire population. Sensitivity tests show that the proposed model is affordable, equitable and implementable




The Making of the TRIPS Agreement


Book Description

A comprehensive account of the establishment of the World Trade Organization, focusing on those who shaped its creation as well as those who have influenced its evolution. The book examines trade negotiations, the WTO's dispute settlement role, the presence of coalitions and groupings within the WTO, the process of joining the organization and many other topics, including what lies ahead for the organization.




Agriculture and The World Trade Organisation


Book Description

The volume offers to the reader a multi-faceted dialogue between noted experts from two major agricultural countries, both founding members of the Word Trade Organisation, each one with different stakes in the great globalisation game. After providing the recent historical background of agricultural policies in India and France, the contributors address burning issues related to market and regulation, food security and food safety, the expected benefits from the WTO and the genuine problems raised by the new forms of international trade in agriculture, including the sensitive question of intellectual property rights in bio-technologies. This informed volume underlines the necessity of moving beyond the North-South divide, in order to address the real challenges of the future.




The WTO and India's Pharmaceuticals Industry


Book Description

The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 brought about significant changes in international economic relations between countries. To comply with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of the WTO, India introduced product patent protection in pharmaceuticals from January 2005. TRIPS has generated a huge controversy in India and abroad. India has emerged as a major source of low-cost, quality drugs for the entire world and thus plays an important role. While there are a large number of pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world, only a handful of multinationals dominate the industry. By using patent rights, multinational companies prevented developing countries like India from realizing their potential of industrial growth and drug prices were among the highest in the world.




Intellectual Property and Public Health in the Developing World


Book Description

Across the world, developing countries are attempting to balance the international standards of intellectual property concerning pharmaceutical patents against the urgent need for accessible and affordable medicines. In this timely and necessary book, Monirul Azam examines the attempts of several developing countries to walk this fine line. He evaluates the experiences of Brazil, China, India, and South Africa for lessons to guide Bangladesh and developing nations everywhere. Azam's legal expertise, concern for public welfare, and compelling grasp of principal case studies make Intellectual Property and Public Health in the Developing World a definitive work. The developing world is striving to meet the requirements of the World Trade Organization's TRIPS Agreement on intellectual property. This book sets out with lucidity and insight the background of the TRIPS Agreement and its implications for pharmaceutical patents, the consequences for developing countries, and the efforts of certain representative nations to comply with international stipulations while still maintaining local industry and public health. Azam then brings the weight of this research to bear on the particular case of Bangladesh, offering a number of specific policy recommendations for the Bangladeshi government—and for governments the world over. Intellectual Property and Public Health in the Developing World is a must-read for public policy-makers, academics and students, non-governmental organizations, and readers everywhere who are interested in making sure that developing nations meet the health care needs of their people.




India and the WTO


Book Description

This book is designed to clarify India's interests in the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda and to provide a blueprint for its strategy in multilateral negotiations. The focus is on facilitating domestic and external policy reforms that can serve to bolster India's participation in the multilateral trading system and to enhance the effectiveness of India's trade and related policies in achieving developmental goals. Individual chapters address the economic effects on India of the Uruguay Round Negotiations and the prospective Doha Agenda negotiations; the implications of the abolition of the Multi-Fiber Agreement; services issues and liberalization; telecommunications policy reforms; foreign direct investment; intellectual property rights; competition policy; government procurement; standards and technical barriers; trade and environment; and, finally, a comprehensive analysis of the major issues coupled with concrete proposals to guide India's participation in the Doha Development Agenda.




Intellectual Property Law and Access to Medicines


Book Description

The history of patent harmonization is a story of dynamic actors, whose interactions with established structures shaped the patent regime. From the inception of the trade regime to include intellectual property (IP) rights to the present, this book documents the role of different sets of actors – states, transnational business corporations, or civil society groups – and their influence on the structures – such as national and international agreements, organizations, and private entities – that have caused changes to healthcare and access to medication. Presenting the debates over patents, trade, and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), as it galvanized non-state and nonbusiness actors, the book highlights how an alternative framing and understanding of pharmaceutical patent rights emerged: as a public issue, instead of a trade or IP issue. The book thus offers an important analysis of the legal and political dynamics through which the contest for access to lifesaving medication has been, and will continue to be, fought. In addition to academics working in the areas of international law, development, and public health, this book will also be of interest to policy makers, state actors, and others with relevant concerns working in nongovernmental and international organizations.







India and the Patent Wars


Book Description

India and the Patent Wars contributes to an international debate over the costs of medicine and restrictions on access under stringent patent laws showing how activists and drug companies in low-income countries seize agency and exert influence over these processes. Murphy Halliburton contributes to analyses of globalization within the fields of anthropology, sociology, law, and public health by drawing on interviews and ethnographic work with pharmaceutical producers in India and the United States. India has been at the center of emerging controversies around patent rights related to pharmaceutical production and local medical knowledge. Halliburton shows that Big Pharma is not all-powerful, and that local activists and practitioners of ayurveda, India’s largest indigenous medical system, have been able to undermine the aspirations of multinational companies and the WTO. Halliburton traces how key drug prices have gone down, not up, in low-income countries under the new patent regime through partnerships between US- and India-based companies, but warns us to be aware of access to essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries going forward.




Intellectual Property and International Trade: The TRIPS Agreement


Book Description

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is the most far-reaching and comprehensive legal regime ever concluded at the multilateral level in the area of intellectual property rights (IPR). Compared to prior IPR conventions, TRIPS constitutes a major qualitative leap which radically modifies not only the context in which IPR are considered internationally, but also their substantive content and the methods for their enforcement and dispute settlement. This much-welcomed treatise, now in its third edition, thoroughly updates its comprehensive analysis of the substantive provisions of the Agreement and their actual interpretation and application in different jurisdictions, with new material on the burgeoning case law and on major changes in plant variety protection. As in previous editions, the book may be relied upon for in-depth clarification of such matters as the following: • standards established under the agreement; • enforcement measures; • social and legal issues; • legal and policy possibilities offered; • legislative latitude allowed to WTO Member States; • incorporation of TRIPS into domestic law; • protection of integrated circuit design; • protection of innovation and R&D for diseases that disproportionately affect developing countries; • challenges raised by ongoing technological changes; • access to medicines; • protection of confidential (undisclosed) information; and • interface between competition law and intellectual property protection. With fifteen chapters contributed by a distinguished panel of experts representing diverse parties — international organisations, legal practice, government policy, and academia — the third edition offers an incomparable framework for understanding the background, principles, and complex provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. Thoroughly revised and updated, the third edition will be of great value to all professionals and business people concerned with international trade. It stimulates further discussion and analysis in this area of growing importance to international law and international economic relations, particularly regarding the possibilities offered by the Agreement and the loose ends that may need consideration in the future at the national or international level.