Intellectual Property Rights Public Health

The document details the deadlock in the WTO TRIPs Council over a solution for countries lacking pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity to use compulsory licensing, highlighting disagreements between the US and developing countries over disease coverage. It also examines disputes over the multilateral system for geographical indications (GIs) and outstanding implementation issues concerning biodiversity and traditional knowledge.

• WTO Members failed to reach a consensus by the 31 December 2002 deadline on an 'expeditious solution' to help countries with insufficient pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity use compulsory licensing, as mandated by paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration.
• A primary point of contention in the TRIPs and Public Health negotiations is disease coverage; the US argued that the solution should be limited to HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases of comparable gravity, while developing countries sought a broader mandate to protect public health generally.
• In response to the negotiation breakdown, the US, Switzerland, and Canada established an interim moratorium promising not to challenge WTO Members exporting drugs produced under compulsory license to countries in need, though the US and Swiss versions are limited to specific infectious epidemics.
• Negotiations for a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications (GIs) for wines and spirits are divided between those who believe countries should be obliged to protect registered terms (EU) and those who view the system as a voluntary database (US, Japan, Canada, Australia).
• There is a significant deadlock regarding the extension of high-level GI protection to products other than wines and spirits, with opposition primarily coming from bulk agricultural exporters in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand.
• A group of developing countries has proposed modifying the TRIPs Agreement to prevent biopiracy by requiring patent applicants to disclose the source of biological resources and traditional knowledge, a move resisted by the US and Japan.
• Most WTO Members, excluding the US, believe that non-violation complaints—legal actions based on the loss of an expected benefit rather than a specific agreement violation—should not be applicable to the TRIPs Agreement.

APA

Baumuller, H., Cameron, H., Halle, A., Meléndez-Ortiz, R., Mosoti, V., Primack, D., Sugathan, M., Vivas, D., & Werth, A. (2003). Intellectual Property Rights Public Health. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/wto_doha_ipr.pdf

Chicago

Baumuller, Heike, Hugo Cameron, Anja Halle, Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, Victor Mosoti, David Primack, Mahesh Sugathan, David Vivas, and Alexander Werth. Intellectual Property Rights Public Health. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2003. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/wto_doha_ipr.pdf.

Wikipedia

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BibTeX

@techreport{baumuller2003intellectual, author = {Baumuller, Heike and Cameron, Hugo and Halle, Anja and Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Mosoti, Victor and Primack, David and Sugathan, Mahesh and Vivas, David and Werth, Alexander}, title = {{Intellectual Property Rights Public Health}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2003}, month = feb, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/wto_doha_ipr.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }