Authors

Adriana Lee Benedict was a Student Fellow during the 2012-2013 academic year. At the time, she was a second-year student at Harvard Law School interested in promoting access to medicines and biomedical research. She graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in History and Science, a secondary concentration in government, and a certificate in Mind/Brain/Behavior, and subsequently completed a Master of Science in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health. Adriana pursued health and human rights work in Kenya, Tanzania, India, Peru and Colombia, and is was the co-chair of the Harvard chapter of the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines. Adriana’s research interests lie at the intersection of intellectual property and health law, public interest protections in international trade regimes, pharmaceutical research and licensing, and the international right to health. As a Student Fellow, Adriana analyzed regulatory implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy alongside an evaluation of alternative approaches to pharmaceutical R&D, with a special consideration of the impact of international trade and investment agreements on domestic R&D policies.

Intellectual Property in Investment Agreements: More “Teeth” for Foreign Investors’ IP Rights, Less for Access to Medicines

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By Adriana Benedict

Last week, Public Citizen published a Health GAP analysis entitled “Leaked TPP Investment Chapter Presents a Grave Threat to Access to Medicines,” in which Professor Brook Baker explains four ways in which access to medicines is compromised by the USTR’s leaked investment chapter proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.  The problematic provisions he identifies — inclusion of intellectual property (IP) in the definition of “investment”, ambiguous scope of minimum standards of treatment, inadequate exceptions and limitations for public interest measures, and performance requirement limitations preventing development of local and sustainable production—are not new, but have been included either implicitly or explicitly in countless bilateral investment treaties (BITs) (including the U.S. Model BIT) and the investment chapters of free trade agreements (FTAs) (including virtually all US FTAs and the proposed EU-India FTA).  Such inclusion gives more “teeth” to foreign investors’ IP rights, but what of access to medicines?

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Is the USTR Trading Away Doctors’ Rights to Freely Perform Medical Procedures?

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By Adriana Lee Benedict 

The 14th round of negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA, a multilateral trade agreement currently being negotiated by the USTR and 10 other countries) is currently underway in Leesburg, VA.  Last month, KEI posted a brief video blog about an interesting provision (Article 8.2) of the TTPA’s leaked draft IP chapter calling for patentability of diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods.  Critically, KEI pointed out that current US law (35 U.S.C. 287(c))—which was amended after widespread concern from physicians’ associations regarding the adverse public health effects of medical method patent liability were brought to light with Pallin v. Singer, 36 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1050 (D. Vt. 1995)—immunizes medical practitioners from patent infringement suits concerning medical methods, although the draft TPPA provision makes no such exception.  The proposed provision is also contrary to Article 27(3) of TRIPS and Article 1709(3)(a) of NAFTA, all of which allow countries to exclude such medical methods from patentability, as well as Rule 39.1 of the 1970 PCT, which exempts International Searching Authorities from having to conduct patent searches relating to medical methods.

Medical professional societies, including the WMA, AMA, AAOS, ACOG and ASRC, have also opposed medical procedure patents on ethical grounds.  The WMA has explained that patents are not necessary to incentivize innovation in medical procedures: “Unlike device development, which requires investment in engineers, production processes, and factories, development of medical procedures consists of physicians attaining and perfecting manual and intellectual skills… physicians already have both obligations to engage in these professional activities as well as rewards for doing so.”  The WMA has also noted a number of adverse effects on access to medical care resulting from medical procedure patents, including higher costs, fewer physicians available and/or willing to perform patented procedure, and less innovation in medical procedures.

So what does this mean for the TPPA negotiating parties? Read More