Today the Obama Administration’s inter-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee held the first day of its two-day hearing on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
There is a strong sense in the halls of the current TPP negotiation that the end is not in sight. And one of the primary reasons s a lack of consensus on intellectual property and pharmaceuticals issues, reports Infojustice from Lima.
Locking in Europe and the United States to “old” intellectual property regimes is the one “killer argument” against including an IP chapter in the upcoming Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), according to Bernd Hugenholtz, director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Brussels.
Although access to medicines activists have been wise to focus our attention intently on convincing low- and middle-income countries to adopt and use all possible TRIPS-compliant flexibilities and to oppose the TRIPS-plus IP chapters in free trade agreements, we have neglected to interrogate another chapter in free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties that perhaps pose an even greater threat to our collective access to medicines – investment chapters.
India wíll not tighten laws on intellectual property or go beyond the global intellectual property agreement, TRIPS, in the free trade agreement (FTA) being negotiated with the European Union.
The much-hyped bilateral trade and investment agreement (BTIA) between India and the European Union (EU) would not impact the Indian generic drugs industry or lead to a change in the country's patent law, João Cravinho, EU ambassador to India, said on Friday.
Around 2000 people including people living with HIV (PLHIV), patient groups and public health activists will take to the streets and rally from Barakhamba road to Jantar Mantar at 11.00 am on 10 April 2013 to voice concerns and protest against harmful provisions being pushed by the EU-India FTA negotiations
Will Manmohan Singh understand the clear purpose behind the national sentiment around the Supreme Court judgment on Novartis’ cancer drug Glivec? If he does, he should take a relook at the India-EU Free Trade Agreement that is cooking in his back-room.