The United States Patent and Trademark Office (US PTO), which along with the US Embassy in India had tied up with multinational pharmaceutical company Pfizer in holding meetings across the country last year pushing a TRIPS-plus agenda, has expressed regret over the US PTO's alliance with a private company for conducting such meetings in India.
In response to the meetings in India last year, Peter Pappas, the chief communications officer of US PTO stated “... a single programme late last year in India where a mistake was made and Pfizer was invited to co-sponsor a public discussion programme. The US PTO has since taken corrective action so that this will not happen again. Contrary to what you suggest, however, it is not the US PTO's policy or practice to involve private sector rights holders as co-sponsors of our events. We regret that this occurred with respect to the Indian forum, but that was the exception and not the rule.”
Pappas posted an official statement in this regard in the blog of Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) as a response to one of the blog postings. He made this apology when public interest groups and the media responded to the unethical lobbying practices of the US PTO-Pfizer duo in India last year.
Pappas' apology in this regard is significant because ever since the US PTO meetings in India last year, the pubic interest groups in India have been crying coarse over the US PTO's alliance with Pfizer in pushing a TRIPS-plus agenda in India. These groups also expressed concerns over the meetings as they raised ethical concerns with a regulatory body like the US PTO tying up with a company that it is supposed to regulate.
The public interest groups were concerned over the fact that the meetings held by the USPTO and Pfizer appeared to be designed to circumvent the 2007 New Trade Policy Template which includes removing demands for patent linkages and recognising the full extent of the flexibilities re-affirmed by the Doha Declaration. It was precisely these flexibilities that were under attack at the USPTO-Pfizer meetings. 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.
Besides, the choice of Pfizer as a partner for the USPTO meeting has surprised the public interest groups because in Asia, Pfizer is well known for its tactics in the Philippines to delay generic entry of medicines. Most notable was their litigation against the use of the Bolar exemption by the Philippines US FDA followed by its litigation to enforce patent linkages. More recently, Pfizer has been embroiled in bribery allegations in the Philippines; a matter the US Departments of Justice and Commerce are now being asked to consider under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In the US, Pfizer has just settled numerous complaints related to unethical drug promotion with a massive fine of US$ 2.3 billion.