5th September 2000

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES TACKLE TRIPS COMMITMENTS

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The next meeting of the WTO’s Council on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) on 21-22 September will include a review of national implementing legislation on intellectual property rights. As demonstrated by the cases of Guatemala and Pakistan (see below), developing countries have been working to enact legislation on intellectual property rights (IPR) or update existing patent laws and provide protection to plant breeders in order to keep in line with their WTO commitments. The 21-22 September TRIPs Council will also address requests for observer status (the UN Commission on Biological Diversity has asked to become an observer); review of the provisions of Article 27.3(b) (on protection of plant varieties); and a general review of implementation of the TRIPs Agreement.

In vetoing a weak intellectual property rights bill in early August, Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo has favoured business and WTO commitments over domestic constituencies (including his own party) opposed to strong IPR protection. Pressure is now on Portillo to pass legislation through parliament that would guarantee and enforce effective copyright protection in Guatemala: under the WTO Agreement on TRIPs, developing countries such as Guatemala must have had effective IPR legislation in place as of 1 January 2000. According to sources, the vetoed bill would have made it prohibitively expensive to pursue and punish copyright infringement in Guatemala, and was largely supported by the country’s street vendors.

For its part, Pakistan’s military government is set to tighten intellectual property laws in the country. This was announced after a weekend visit of WTO Director-General Mike Moore to the country on 29 July, where Moore reminded Pakistan of its trade liberalisation obligations as a WTO Member. The Director-General is also said to have assured the Pakistani government of help with regard to capacity- building in implementing the WTO Agreements. Pakistan has finalised the draft of its Patent Act and Plant Breeders Rights Act, and the two laws will go into effect once approved by the federal cabinet. “We have assured the WTO head that Islamabad will soon fulfil its obligations under TRIPs,” said a Ministry of Commerce official. Non-governmental organisations in the country are demanding more participation from civil society in the process as well as the right to information on key IPR issues, emphasising that these laws may affect food supply and make essential medicines prohibitively expensive.

The US has indicated that while it is willing to talk about re-opening the TRIPs Agreement for discussion, it is more interested in ensuring that countries hold to their TRIPs commitments. Assistant US trade representative Joseph Papovich stated on 27 July that there would be no extension of the 1 January 2000 implementation date for developing countries, but that if countries were making good faith efforts to modify their legislation, “we’re prepared to work with them on that.” Developing countries are pushing to open the TRIPs Agreement for review in order to redress what many see as serious imbalances in the provisions of the accord with respect to the developmental objectives of the Uruguay Round and the public policy aims of intellectual property (see BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest Vol. 4, No 26, 4 July 2000, /html/weekly/story2.04-07-00.htm ).

“Weak patents bill vetoed,” FINANCIAL TIMES, 8 August 2000; “Pakistan to tighten patent laws,” IPS DAILY JOURNAL, 3 August 2000; “Official says US more interested in implementing TRIPs than reopening it,” WTO Reporter, 27 July 2000; ICTSD Internal Files.