West Africa and Intellectual Property: Policy Priorities to Foster Economic Growth, Public Health and Culture
December 6-8, 2004
Sofitel Teranga Dakar
Dakar, Senegal

Many West African countries do not have strong intellectual property regimes and are having difficulty in enforcing intellectual property rights. Combating piracy and counterfeiting is a major problem for these countries. Not only does piracy and counterfeiting drastically reduce the economic potential of local intellectual property-based industries, but it also can have serious public health and safety impacts, when for instance pharmaceutical products are counterfeited. This conference will bring together policymakers, legal professionals and the public health community to discuss the rule of law in intellectual property, intellectual property public health and safety, technology commercialization and the use of intellectual property to promote culture based industries.

Agenda
Press Release

Jordan Intellectual Property Week - 2004
Amman, Jordan
August 23 - 25, 2004

Jordan Intellectual Property Week is an annual event that brings together international experts and a host of Jordanian business and government leaders to discuss a intellectual property business strategies and policies.  With the patronage of Jordan's King Abdullah, Jordan IP Week is the largest intellectual property event in Jordan.  Among the topics discussed at Jordan IP Week 2004 include, comparative patent claim scope for pharmaceutical products, effective adjudication of copyright and trademark cases, national innovation policy reform, negotiating franchising agreements, and patent search techniques.

Agenda, Biographies and Selected Presentations
Press Release
Jordan IP Week Website

IIPI Report: Establishing Globally-Competitive Pharmaceutical and Bio-Medical Technology Industries in Jordan - Assessment of Business Strategies and the Enabling Environment
By:  Michael Ryan and Jillian Shanebrook
August 2004

The government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has pursued during recent years an ambitious economic reform effort related to accession to the World Trade Organization and conclusion of a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States. Jordan, though modest in economic size and population, is strategically vital to the Middle East region and economy, as the establishment of the permanent home of the World Economic Forum—Middle East at the Dead Sea testifies. Future economic success will depend in part on Jordan’s capacity to foster globally-competitive pharmaceutical and bio-medical technology industries in Jordan. The researchers investigated global and local industry sector dynamics and change, especially with respect to pharmaceuticals, bio-medical technology, and medical tourism. Secondarily and with a focus on conditions for industry success, the investigators obtained industry perspectives on the enabling environment of government laws, policies, and public administration structures and processes, especially with respect to intellectual property and bio-medical regulation. From the perspectives of industrial organization economics, law and economics, and technology management, and informed by the most up-to-date general research findings and global best practices, the report recommends strategies for business, government, and the research community.

Report  (PDF, 691KB)
Press Release


An Intellectual Property System in Thailand for Bio-Innovation and Commercialization: A National Strategy for Business, Government and the Technology Community
By:  Michael Ryan and Eric Garduño
July 2004

Thailand is in the midst of developing a national biotechnology strategy designed to promote the growth of its nascent biotechnology industry. This report its meant to inform the development of this strategy, by providing a number of specific intellectual property-related recommendations.

Report  (PDF, 85KB)
Press Release

Protecting Pharmaceutical Patent Rights Into the Future
Speech by Hon. Bruce Lehman
Paris, France
June 24, 2004

During the 1970’s there were great investments, both public and private, into technology but little was done to translate these into the international market place, when the 1980’s and the “American Malaise” hit many industries suffered in terms of what they could invoke patent protection over. This resulted in a strengthening of patent laws under President Reagan which in turn spawned Silicon Valley and a major take off of technological advances.

Speech (PDF, 33KB)

Is a Sui Generis System Necessary? -Benefit Sharing Agreements
Speech by Lee Gillespie-White
New York, NY
January 14, 2004

With WIPO and the WTO drawing up agreements to deal with the protection of biodiversity it becomes necessary to ask if, with in that agreement, there needs to be protections for genetic resources and the technologies that could emerge from them. Traditional knowledge, with respect to medical technology, has always been protected and respected, however when patents run out on inventions built off this knowledge they become public domain sometimes taking the knowledge with them.

Speech (PDF, 167KB)

Conference on Intellectual Property and International Public Health
October 6-8, 2003
Georgetown University
Washington, DC

New drug development takes place almost entirely in the United States, the member states of the European Union and other developed countries. While governments of these developed countries provide significant public funding for basic research into the causes of disease, most pharmaceutical products result from the research and development efforts of private companies. The new drugs developed by pharmaceutical companies are, in almost all cases, patented in the major markets where they are distributed commercially. In the United States, pursuant to the Bayh-Dole Act, even taxpayer-funded research carried out in university and government laboratories is patented, and the patent rights are routinely transferred to profit-making pharmaceutical companies who obtain marketing approval and make them available to patients.  This conference will explore the relationship of the patent system to new drug development, the relationship of patents to the pricing of new drugs, the differences in the markets for patented drugs among developed countries, the relationship of publicly funded research to new drug development, possible solutions to the problem of providing drugs to patients in poor countries, and the role of patents in research directed at medicines needed in developing countries.  Presentations will be made by experts from academia, government, and the private sector. Invitations to attend the conference will be extended to policy makers, public health authorities, business people, and experts in intellectual property law from throughout the world, with a special emphasis on participants from developing countries.

Agenda, Biographies and Materials
Conference Overview
Press Release


IIPI Report:  Counterfeit Goods and the Public’s Health and Safety
By:  Michele Forzley
July 2003

Counterfeit goods cause injuries in many ways. From forged labels on baby formula to drugs that lack active ingredients, the counterfeiting of alcohol, drugs, food, and personal care items endanger the public’s health and safety.

Counterfeiting is a problem for both the intellectual property legal system and for public health and safety organizations around the world. This study systematically reviews available materials and begins the scientific study of counterfeit goods as an unintentional injury mechanism.

Report (PDF, 261KB)
Press Release

Making the World Safe for Biotech Patents
Article by Hon. Bruce Lehman
2003
The Journal of Biolaw and Business

Intellectual Property’s Golden Age is over. Now, hard-fought international reforms in intellectual property standards face a menacing backlash by anti-biotechnology activists. Ironically, most of the backlash is not in developing countries, who have widely accepted intellectual property as a tool of development, but in developed regions such as the European Union and Canada.

Article (PDF, 553KB)

Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals and the Issue of Rights
Speech by Lee Gillespie-White
Washington, DC
November 2002

By not enforcing patent barriers on HIV/AIDS medicines in sub-Saharan Africa patents have the ability to access them easier, much to their benefit. However, deciding when and where to use the drugs becomes a socio-economic issue rather then a health care issue adding to the problem.

Speech (PDF, 164KB)

Health and Patents: The Rights Issue
Speech by Lee Gillespie-White
New York City, New York
June 2002

“The question of access to drugs…is normally dealt with as a trade off between competing rights- the right to health care versus the right to property.” It becomes necessary to weigh the benefit of a drug against the rights of the company that made it for profits, and in developing nations this question becomes even more vital.

Speech (PDF, 150KB)

Patents and Health
Speech by Hon. Bruce Lehman
Beijing, China
May 2002

Due to the way that patent protections operate it is generally impossible for people in developing countries to purchase goods that contain still protected technologies, this includes everything from flat screen televisions to medicines. Many developing countries simply do not apply patens to medicines, however WTO has upheld that they can do so until 2016. Due to this many pharmaceutical companies do not devote much research to drugs for the developing world, causing even more disease and poverty.

Speech (PDF, 474KB)

Treading an Independent Course for Protecting Traditional Knowledge
by Lee Gillespie-White & Eric Garduño
April 2002

Taking a traditional natural product of the Sans Tribe, South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) developed an effective hunger suppression supplement.  However, what initially was a case of bio-piracy was converted into a shinning example of equitable benefit sharing with indigenous people.

View Article (99 KB)

What Did Doha Accomplish?  The Doha Declaration on Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Medicines
by Lee Gillespie-White
November 2001

After the “Doha Declaration on Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines,” advocates of increasing third world access to life-saving medicines claimed victory, but what did they really win?

View Article (98 KB)

Article:  Do Patents for Antiretroviral Drugs Constrain Access to AIDS Treatment in Africa?
By:  Lee Gillespie-White and Amir Attaran
October 17, 2001

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and co-authored by IIPI's Lee Gillespie-White and Dr. Amir Attaran of Harvard's Center for International Development, this article illustrates the fact that patent protection does not act as a barrier to access to HIV/AIDS pharmaceuticals.

Article (PDF, 512KB)
Press Release

Briefing to Congress on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic
July 20, 2001
Washington, DC

The International Intellectual Property Institute has been involved in research and discussion of the HIV/AIDS issue since its founding in 1998. In December 2000, IIPI published Patent Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in sub-Saharan Africa, a first-of-its-kind report examining the patent status of HIV/AIDS treatments in all countries of sub-Saharan Africa . As part of its efforts to promote access to HIV/AIDS medications to people in developing countries, IIPI worked in conjunction with the Congressional Economic Leadership Institute (CELI), to create a briefing for Members of Congress and Congressional staff concerning the role of the U.S. government in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The half-day program was co-chaired by Congressmen Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) and Jim McDermott (D-WA) and featured several renowned experts on the crisis. Four separate panels examined the status of the crisis, the state of related science, approaches to intervention and prevention, care and treatment, and discussed how the resources and leadership of the U.S. government can be used most effectively.

Agenda, Biographies and Materials
Press Release

Who Owns the Human Genome?  Human Genetics and Intellectual Property
Speech by Hon. Bruce Lehman
Washington, D.C.
April 2001

The Supreme Court ruled in Diamond vs. Diehr that anything created “under the sun that is made by man” was eligible for a patent. This should clearly apply to discoveries made concerning the application and use of gene technology.

Speech (PDF, 130KB)

Panel Discussion Series: Where Intellectual Property and International Trade Collide
January 2001 - March 2001
Ronald Reagan International Trade Center
Washington, DC

International trade in goods and services that are protected by intellectual property laws has significantly increased in volume and value over the last ten years, drawing the attention of trade experts and policy makers around the world. As part of the Institute's public education effort concerning the importance of intellectual property to the world economy, this discussion series provided an overview of intellectual property law, United States trade law related to intellectual property, and international institutions that deal with intellectual property matters. The discussion series also provided focused examination of such important issues as parallel imports and pharmaceuticals, the status of Chinese intellectual property protections leading up to World Trade Organization entry and North-South differences in intellectual property protection.

Overview and Agendas
Press Release

IIPI Report:  Patent Protection and Access to HIV/AIDS Pharmaceuticals in Sub-Saharan Africa
By:  Lee Gillespie-White, Paul Salmon
December 2000

This groundbreaking report investigated the patent status of HIV/AIDS medications in Sub-Saharan Africa. While patents, and intellectual property in general, are often cited as barriers to people receiving medications, this report and subsequent research shows that the patent status of medications is rarely an issue, and that financing and poor infrastructure are the primary impediments to people receiving the necessary drugs.

Report (PDF, 8.7MB)
Press Release


Panel Discussion: Fairness in Drug Patenting: The Role of Congress
Summer 1999
Washington, DC

The pharmaceutical approval process is long and tedious, usually representing a substantial portion of total research and development costs. Often, much of the original 20-year patent term applied to pharmaceutical products lapses before final approval is obtained, reducing the period of time companies have to recover expenses. To safeguard the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to continue researching and developing new products, intellectual property laws should take into consideration the realities of the pharmaceutical approval process. This discussion brings together a number of experts to discuss a fair means of granting patent term restoration.

Panel Overview
Statement Before House Subcommittee re: Act – Hon. Bruce Lehman (PDF, 103KB)