A host of public interest, health and patients groups in India have urged US president Barack Obama to immediately cease the activities of United States Patents and Trademark Office (US PTO) and Pfizer in India in promoting increasing intellectual property protection, TRIPS-plus measures and lobbying against the use of TRIPS-flexibilities by the Indian Parliament.
In an open letter to Obama, the Indian public interest groups asked the US to disengage from any activities that hamper the utilisation of TRIPS flexibilities in developing and least developed countries. They also asked the US president not to use any diplomatic, economic or financial tools such as super 301 to enforce TRIPS-plus agenda in developing and least developed countries and also not to attack the domestic policy space of the developing and least developed countries which is available under various treaties, to further the business interests of its pharmaceutical companies.
Expressing grave concern over the meetings held by the US PTO in collaboration with Pfizer to attack India's patent law and its public health safeguards, the NGOs said that the US PTO has tied up with Pfizer in holding meetings across the country for pushing a TRIPS-plus agenda. The meetings also raise ethical concerns with a regulatory body like the US PTO tying up with a company that it is supposed to regulate.
The meetings were held in Mumbai on September 9, 2009 and in Delhi on October 9, 2009 to mainly engage in unethical lobbying practices with various stakeholders. Apart from pushing for TRIPS-plus provisions like data exclusivity and patent linkages in India, the US PTO has also been actively speaking against Section 3(d), the provision in India's patent law prohibiting evergreening, the letter said.
Stating that India's ability to continue supplying safe, effective and affordable generics to its own citizens and to most of the developing and least developed world depends on the continued and balanced use of TRIPS flexibilities, the letter regretted that, "instead of the US government promoting new thinking on IPR, innovation and access, we find that financial and technical resources of the US PTO/US embassy are being ploughed back into their old strategy of promoting TRIPS-plus measures and undermining the use of TRIPS-flexibilities in India based on widely discredited arguments that these will assist India in achieving access to medicines. We cannot stress enough the impact of these actions being at the cost not only of Indian citizens but of millions across the developing and least developed world".
The NGOs who have signed the open letter to Obama included All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (JSA), Centre for Trade and Development (Centad), Drug Action Forum, Karnataka (DAF-K), Delhi Science Forum (DSF), Delhi Network of Positive People (DNP+), International Treatment Preparedness Coalition - India (ITPC - India), Knowledge Commons, Initiative for Health Equity & Society (IHES), Diverse Women for Diversity, All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN), Action Aid India, Centre for Education and Communication' (CEC), Sama-Resource Group for Women & Health and Centre for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ).