>>It comes as no suprise that countries in Group 1 have
>>generally been hostile to compulsory licensing of HIV/AIDS
>>drugs, while countries in group 2 have generally been
>>supportive.
While most less developed countries and Europe have excluded plants and animals or the method of treatment of human or animal body from patent law (and many have excluded foodstuff and medicine as well), the Trade Related Intellectual and Property Rights agreement of 1994 attempts to create a uniform, standardized international patent regime that applies uniformly to all the countries, irrespective of levels of develpment, natural and human endowments, and history.
While most national patent laws provide for 'compulsory licensing', that is forcing the patent holder to permit use of patented products by others, that is not easy to implement. Morevoer the TRIP agreement is actually not keen about compulsory licensing, and provides for detailed conditions regarding notification, reunmeration and judicial review before such compulsory licensing can be introduced.
In the late 1980s US firms claimed to be losing around $61 bn from "piracy" of their intellectual property, around $3-6bn of those by the chemical and pharmaceutical industry alone. There was corporate mobilisation against the Marakesh agreement for failure to grant 'pipeline' protection for drugs already invented but not yet on the market.
TRIPs agreement provides a comprehensive set of global trade rules for the protection of global trade rules for the protection of copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade secrets, semiconductor layout designs, and geographical indications, that apply to all the member coutnries irrespective of their levels of development, natural and endowments and history. Every member country has been asked by WTO to amend its national patent law to conform to that universal, globalised format. Under Article 65, the developed countries within one year, and the LDC within another five years, and and additional five years for legislation regarding pharmaceuticals, agro chemicals, food, alloys, etc. Those changes are to be made by 2005
source Biplab Dasgupat, Patent Lies and Latent Danger, Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay), 4/17-24/99