Morning Briefing

Trade officials met last week at the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization "to make progress on a proposal that would allow poor countries to provide inexpensive generic versions of lifesaving medications, rather than rely a single version of the same drugs under expensive patent monopolies," but the U.S. "remained steadfast in rejecting proposals aimed at lowering the prices of existing medicines in poor countries," the Huffington Post reports (Carter, 5/29). At the 18th session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP), delegates considered two proposals, according to Intellectual Property Watch. The news service notes that a South African proposal (.pdf), submitted on behalf of the African Group and the Development Agenda Group (DAG), would have assisted developing nations adapt their patent schemes "to make full use of the flexibilities available in the international patent system in the interest of public health," and a U.S. proposal (.pdf) "warned against any weakening of patent protection as a solution to the lack of availability of medicine in developing countries" because, "the delegate said, less patent rights would be detrimental to innovation" (Saez, 5/25).