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    <p>There is a fascinating chapter by Boldrin and Levine that
      destroys the myth that patents encourage innovation in any case in
      the area of pharmaceuticals. These two are not anti-capitalist.
      Probably fairly conventional politically. But they show how
      historically, the introduction of patents stifled innovation and
      also that many "best seller" drugs owe nothing at all to
      intellectual property.</p>
    <p>It is a powerful argument for social justice purposes. I
      thoroughly recommend anyone interested in IP in pharma to read
      this chapter which you can find at this link to the book.<br>
    </p>
    <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.fraw.org.uk/library/foss/boldrin_levine_2008.pdf">http://www.fraw.org.uk/library/foss/boldrin_levine_2008.pdf</a><br>
    <br>
    Best alison<br>
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      <br>
      Le 14. 02. 18 à 01:58, Claudio Schuftan a écrit :<br>
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                      <div><span>Intellectual Property Regime Undermines
                          Equity, Progress</span><br>
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                                <div dir="ltr">Jomo Kwame Sundaram<br>
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                                <div dir="ltr">KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13
                                  (IPS)  - Over the last few decades,
                                  people in the developing world have
                                  been rejecting the intellectual
                                  property (IP) regime as it has been
                                  increasingly imposed on them following
                                  the establishment of the World Trade
                                  Organization (WTO) including its
                                  trade-related intellectual property
                                  rights (TRIPs) regime. IP rights
                                  (IPRs) have been further enforced
                                  through ostensible free trade
                                  agreements (FTAs) and investment
                                  treaties among two (bilateral) or more
                                  (plurilateral) partners.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Despite their ostensible
                                  rationale, the IP standards rich
                                  country governments insist on have
                                  never been intended to maximize
                                  scientific progress and technological
                                  innovation. Rather, the IPR regime
                                  serves to maximize the profits of
                                  influential pharmaceutical and other
                                  companies by conferring them with
                                  exclusive monopoly rights. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">In the pushback,
                                  initially led by Nelson Mandela soon
                                  after he became South African
                                  President under the new dispensation
                                  in 1994, developing countries have
                                  targeted access to essential
                                  medicines. Thus, the 2005 Indian law
                                  to conform to the WTO's TRIPs
                                  safeguarded access to generic
                                  equivalents, as allowed for by the
                                  public health exception to TRIPs. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">However, the WTO rules
                                  disallow Indian generic manufacturers
                                  from exporting their medicines to
                                  Africa and other poor countries
                                  lacking the necessary pharmaceutical
                                  manufacturing capacities and
                                  capabilities. Even if the African
                                  countries could produce the drugs
                                  domestically, they would be more
                                  expensive as they would lack the
                                  economies of scale required to lower
                                  costs in their relatively small
                                  economies.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Privatizing knowledge<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">In Innovation,
                                  Intellectual Property and Development,
                                  Joseph Stiglitz, Dean Baker and Arjun
                                  Jayadev have shown that the economic
                                  institutions and laws protecting
                                  knowledge in OECD economies not only
                                  poorly govern economic activity, but
                                  are also especially ill-suited to
                                  developing countries' needs,
                                  especially the global commitment to
                                  achieving universal health care of
                                  Agenda 2030, the Sustainable
                                  Development Goals.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">From an economic
                                  perspective, knowledge is considered a
                                  global public good, as the marginal
                                  cost of anyone using it is zero.
                                  Growth of knowledge can presumably
                                  improve wellbeing. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Despite lack of evidence,
                                  the IP advocacy argument has been that
                                  market forces ‘undersupply' knowledge
                                  owing to the poor incentives for
                                  research and innovation. The usual
                                  claim is that this ‘market failure' is
                                  best corrected by providing a private
                                  monopoly through property rights for
                                  new knowledge, e.g., through
                                  enforceable patent rights. Private IP
                                  protection is presumed to be the only
                                  one way to reward, and thus encourage
                                  research and innovation. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">The trio argue that the
                                  IP regime has been much more
                                  problematic than expected, even in
                                  rich countries. They show how the 2013
                                  US Supreme Court decision that
                                  naturally occurring genes cannot be
                                  patented has shown that the IP regime
                                  impedes, rather than stimulates
                                  research by limiting access to
                                  knowledge. Following the ruling,
                                  innovation accelerated, leading to
                                  better diagnostic tests (e.g., for
                                  genes related to breast cancer) at
                                  much lower cost.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Alternatives<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Stiglitz, Baker and
                                  Jayadev focus on three alternatives to
                                  motivate and finance research in the
                                  US context. First, through centralized
                                  mechanisms to directly support
                                  research. Second, by decentralizing
                                  direct funding, e.g., via tax credits;
                                  government bodies or research
                                  foundations or institutions can reward
                                  successful innovations or findings.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">The patent system rewards
                                  legal ownership of innovation, but
                                  effectively impedes the use of that
                                  knowledge by others, thus reducing its
                                  potential benefits. Having a creative
                                  commons, e.g., open-source software,
                                  would maximize the flow of knowledge.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">The trio recommend that
                                  developing economies use all these
                                  approaches to promote learning and
                                  innovation. They view the gap between
                                  developing and developed countries as
                                  involving a gap in knowledge
                                  comparable to the gap in resources. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Hence, to improve
                                  economic welfare in the world, they
                                  urge diffusion of knowledge from
                                  developed to developing countries, as
                                  conventional social scientists have
                                  urged as part of modernization theory
                                  for more than half a century.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Often dense ‘patent
                                  thickets', requiring many patents, are
                                  increasingly stifling innovation.
                                  Payments to lawyers and patent
                                  investigators typically exceed those
                                  to scientific researchers in such
                                  cases, with research often oriented to
                                  extend, broaden and leverage monopoly
                                  rights due to patents.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">One perverse consequence
                                  has been patent ‘trolling' by
                                  speculators who buy up patents which
                                  they think has a chance of being
                                  necessary for any product or process
                                  innovation. Thus becoming gatekeepers
                                  like the mythical trolls, they
                                  effectively block innovation unless
                                  their price is met.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Neo-liberal monopolies<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Ironically, while the
                                  case for more openness in sharing
                                  knowledge is compelling,
                                  ‘neo-liberals' -- who typically claim
                                  the moral high ground in opposing
                                  monopolies and related market
                                  distortions -- have effectively served
                                  to extend and strengthen property
                                  rights and attendant monopolies. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Powerful corporate and
                                  developed economy government lobbies
                                  have influenced the IP regime, e.g.,
                                  by opposing competing rights
                                  associated with nature, biodiversity
                                  or even traditional knowledge. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Hence, recent ostensible
                                  FTAs have extended IPRs to cover
                                  ‘biologics', i.e., naturally occurring
                                  substances, such as insulin for those
                                  suffering from diabetes, which is
                                  derived from mammals. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Thus, over the last few
                                  decades, the evolving IP regime has
                                  erected more and more barriers to
                                  widespread use of new knowledge. The
                                  current IP regime serves to maximize
                                  profits for a few monopolies, e.g.,
                                  ‘Big Pharma', rather than the progress
                                  and welfare of the many. <br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Widespread strictly
                                  enforced IP protection is historically
                                  new. IP protections came very late to
                                  the early industrializing economies,
                                  typically delayed to enable rapid
                                  ‘catch-up' industrialization and
                                  technological change.<br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">The ‘weightless economy'
                                  of data, information and knowledge is
                                  accounting for a growing share of
                                  economic value in the world. Stiglitz,
                                  Baker and Jayadev argue that existing
                                  rules governing global knowledge serve
                                  as fetters that must be broken to
                                  reflect these realities.<br>
                                </div>
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                                <div dir="ltr">***<br>
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                                <div dir="ltr">------------------------------<wbr>---------<br>
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                                <div dir="ltr">Related Links<br>
                                </div>
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                                <div dir="ltr"><br>
                                </div>
                                <div dir="ltr">Visit this story at <a
                                    shape="rect"
href="http://ipsnews.net/2018/02/intellectual-property-regime-undermines-equity-progress"
                                    rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
                                    moz-do-not-send="true">http://ipsnews.net/2018/02/<wbr>intellectual-property-regime-<wbr>undermines-equity-progress</a><br>
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