Politics

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• Politics
• Ideology of Intellectual Property
• The Role of Civil Society
• 20 21 March 2006
• Brussels
• Hotel Renaissance
• Organized by Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue

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• An Action Aid study (1999) lists in two tables
  patents that have been claimed for naturally
  occurring compounds, genes or gene sequences with
  a variety of functions. They include
• i) 62 patents on genes or natural compounds from
  plants which are traditional grown in developing
  countries. The plants include rice (34 patents),
  cocoa (7), cassava (2), millet (1), sorghum (1),
  sweet potato (2), jojoba (3)
• ii) 132 patents on genes in staple food crops
  which originated in developing countries but
  which are now grown globally. The crops include
  maize (68 patents), potato (17 ) soybean (25) and
  wheat (22)

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• Case of Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser
• Pollen from a neighbours GE canola fields and
  seeds that blew off trucks on the way to
  processing plant ended up contaminating Percys
  fields with Monsantos genetics
• Canadas Supreme Crt held that Percy had
  technically infringed Monsantos
  patents.although he did not have to pay
  penaltiesit costs him 400 000

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• Center of Food Safety (2005) based in Washington
  reports that Monsanto has filed lawsuits against
  147 American farmers and the company has a staff
  of 75 devoted solely to investigating and
  prosecuting farmers
• The report expressed concern that in its quest
  to be the source for staple crop seeds in the US
  and around the world, the company will overturn
  centuries old farming practices through lawsuits

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• Gene Patent Rush
• Guardian (2000) reported after studying 40 patent
  authorities worldwide that patents were pending
  on or had been granted on more than 500 000 genes
  and partial sequences in living organism.
• 20 of human genes have been patented in US,
  primarily by private firms and universities
• Basel based biotechnology giant Syngenta claims
  that it invented more than 30 000 gene sequences
  of rice..more than 99.5 of the rice genome and
  is seeking global patents over thousands of genes
  in rice. ..the multinational giant is all set
  to own rice, the worlds most important staple
  food crop
• (Sharma (2005), Third World Resurgence)

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Owning the Future

• Shulman (1999)
• Gold Rush in the idea economy
• As ideas, concepts, blueprints and codes become
  the most sought after commodities in our new
  knowledge-based economy, people are hoarding,
  fighting over and seeking to control them as
  never before
• the current trajectory promises nothing less
  than an uncontrolled stampede to auction off our
  technological and cultural heritage, a future of
  increasing conflict and dissension, and the
  specter of an ominous descent into a new Dark Age

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IP PRESSURE POINTS

• TRIPS Agreement minimum standards
• few developing countries were involved in
  negotiations
• Resistance to inclusion within WTO
• Gave in because of market access in agriculture
• no country really understood implications
• World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
• standard setting exercises
• Bilateral Free Trade Agreements other
  bilateral pressures

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How is it being sold.

• Extensive IP regimes sold to developing countries
  by linking it to trade.
• Strong IP protection leads to
• technology transfer
• foreign direct investment
• innovation

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Civil Society

• very important role
• increase understanding about IP and its impacts
  such as on essential goods such as medicines,
  educational materials, and on development through
  papers, publications, workshops, seminars,
  media..
• On the issue of Access to Medicines, groups such
  as CPTech, HAI, MSF and others launched a
  campaign and brought out information about the
  tax payers contribution to drug development, drug
  pricing, its relationship to patents, about the
  use of compulsory licensesstressing the need
  to prioritize health over commercial interests.
• to counter myths/fallacies about IP
• exposing the hypocrisy of the developed countries
• e.g. Access to Medicines campaign revealed that
  flexibilities such as compulsory licensing were
  used frequently by developed countries, but the
  developed countries were preventing developing
  countries from making use of these provisions.

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Civil Society

• is an influential voice for developing countries
• the momentum built from the Access to Medicines
  campaign calling for the need to prioritize
  health over commercial interests, gave a strong
  voice in support of a proposal in the WTO by a
  large group of developing countries that were
  also pushing for the same..leading to the Doha
  Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health in 2001
• highlight issues that are essential to developing
  countries, forcing international community to
  address these issues
• epidemic of biopiracy
• patenting of life forms

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Campaign Biopiracy

• Companies are being granted patents for products,
  technologies that make use of the GR, plants that
  have been identified, developed and used by local
  communities and indigenous people mainly in
  countries from the South
• ..companies make huge profits but the local
  communities are unrewarded.and face the threat
  of having to buy these products in the future
• the injustice of the systemfought at all levels
  by farmers, indigenous people and public interest
  groups
• RAFI, GRAIN, TWN have worked to raise general
  awareness of the phenomenon of biopiracy
• Many cases of biopiracy have been identified and
  documented by NGOs. e.g. a publication by the
  Edmonds Institute and Africa Center for Biosafety
  documented after a months research possible
  cases of biopiracy in Africa
• There is a strong push by the developing
  countries supported by civil society
  organizations within the CBD, WIPO and the WTO to
  take steps to deal with this problem of
  biopiracy.

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Campaign Biopiracy

• In Washington in September 1995, more than 200
  organisations from 35 countries filed a petition
  at the USPTO calling for the revocation of a
  patent given to W R Grace company to use a
  pesticide extract from the neem tree.
• They argued that the company has wrongfully
  usurped an age-old biological process used by
  millions of farmers in India and other countries
  for generations. The legal challenge was led by
  the US group Foundation on Economic Trends led by
  Jeremy Rifkin, with other key petitioners being
  the Research Foundation for Science, Technology
  and Natural Resources Policy (RFSTNRP) and the
  Karnataka Farmers' Union (both from India), the
  International Federation of Organic Agriculture
  Movements (IFOAM), and the TWN.

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Campaign Biopiracy

• In Brussels another legal petition was filed in
  June 1995 at the EPO against a patent it had
  granted to W R Grace for a method that extracts
  the neem oil for use in controlling fungi on
  plants.
• The three opponents, European Member of
  Parliament Magda Alvoet, Indian scientists
  Vandana Shiva of the RFSTNRP, and IFOAM President
  Herve la Prairie, argue that the patent was
  wrongly given as the claims for the technique
  lacked novelty, inventiveness and clarity.
• The petition argued that the invention is not new
  as the patented method for extracting neem oil is
  a standard method used for many decades, whilst
  the anti-fungi effects of neem oil have been
  known in India for centuries and thus cannot be
  considered a 'discovery' as claimed by the
  company.

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Campaign No Patents on Life Forms

• Issue patenting of plants, seeds and the sui
  generis plant variety protection leading to
  corporate control over food supply
• Corporate mergers and broad patenting rights has
  led to top 10 seeds companies controlling 30
  of the worlds commercial seed market.
• Traditional farming practices of exchanging,
  reusing, selling seeds are threatened and farmers
  are being sued
• NGO campaigns prevented many developing countries
  to sign on to UPOV 1991 that is harmful to their
  small farmers..but that developed countries were
  (and are still) pressuring developing countries
  to adopt.
• Dec 97.BIOTHAI and GRAIN together with 40 over
  NGOs from Africa, Asia, Latin America got
  together to discuss strategies to counter patents
  on life formsoutcome Thammasat Resolution which
  called for the revision of the TRIPS Agreement
  and asserted the primacy of the CBD

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Overall Impact of Civil Society

• besides resisting the expansion of the IP
  system in the different tracks..
• Campaigns have created awareness that there are
  problems with the system as it is currently
  dogmatically pursued..leading to
• strong calls to evaluate the system particularly
  in the developed countries, the WTO and WIPO
• emphasis on protecting the public domain
• emphasis on balancing the private and public
  interest
• emphasis on fact that this one system may NOT
  suit all countries, the different communities.
  each should have the policy space to determine
  and design its own systemdepending on its needs.
  

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• Thank you