Taking stock of threats to intellectual property

G. Chandrashekhar

Mumbai, April 25 Innovation is integral to achieving environmental, social and economic progress. In the normal course, on April 26, the World Intellectual Property Day, the world should be celebrating the essential role intellectual property (IP) plays in promoting innovation; but increasingly it is becoming the day to take stock of how much human innovation and ingenuity is under threat, says Mr Tim Wilson, Director of IP and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia.

IP has always been a niche public policy area understood best by policy researchers and lawyers. For the lay public it is an esoteric subject little understood. Unless there is a major controversy, IP tends to escape public consciousness. “But that is changing,” asserts Mr Wilson, adding that over the past few years, campaigns to undermine IP have increased and are now reaching a fever pitch.

According to the expert, IP is essential because it provides the property right needed for research and development to attract investment with the prospect of a long-term dividend. “Undermining IP is equivalent to the traditional socialist ethos — divide the spoils of today’s R&D, rather than focussing on expanding it,” he points out.

90,000 applications

A lot is, of course, at stake. According to the most recent figures from the United Nations, the Indian patent registry receives more than 90,000 applications for patentable inventions each year. In spite of the significant contribution of IP regime which encourages investments in R&D and innovation, there has been a global campaign to undermine IP rights by a group of anti-market activists, self-interested politicians, vested interests, and more recently, the infiltrated World Health Organisation, laments Mr Wilson.

Innovative medicines have been one of the big targets of the activists who have argued that IP rights increase the cost of medicines for the world’s poor. Yet, what is ignored is the fact that one of the biggest contributors to increasing costs of medicines is actually the government-imposed taxes and tariffs that raise the price of life-saving medicines, the expert points out, adding that in India, the combined taxes and tariffs on imported medicines is 55 per cent, as compared with 28 per cent in China.

But these ground realities have not stopped governments from acting to undermine IP. In early 2007, the then-Thai military government waived the patents of three patented medicines through a process called ‘compulsory licensing’, in clear abuse of a reasonable interpretation of the TRIPS agreement, according to Mr Wilson. Compulsory licensing can be resorted in case of extreme emergency only.

After pharmaceuticals, global warming has become a new battleground for activists.

In a joint statement at the 2007 G8 Summit, the governments of Brazil, China, India and South Africa called for an agreement to assist in compulsory licensing the IP related to carbon dioxide emission-mitigating technology being developed in wealthy countries.

If IP protection was diluted or not made available, the world’s poor are most likely to suffer, the expert points out, adding that the poor would be affected because of lack of investment in essential medicines or mitigation technologies to fight the predicted consequences of not reducing CO2 emissions.

Technology transfer is vital for developing countries to grow their economies and improve their standards of health and environment. A 2006 World Bank study and a 1998 International Energy Agency/UNEP study have identified that strengthening IP rights assists in technology transfer.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation has designated 2008 as the year for ‘celebrating innovations and promoting respect for IP’.

‘Innovative medicines have been one of the big targets of activists who argue that IP rights increase the cost of medicines for the world’s poor. But it’s the government-imposed taxes and tariffs that raise prices.’