[Commons-Law] on TK and Access and Benefit Sharing Schemes

[sudhir at circuit.sarai.net]

Dear all

In early June WIPO is scheduled to discuss the formalization of an access
and benefit sharing aspect to patents relying on genetic resources in third
world countries. Apologies for cross posting - as this brief from Grain
provides one an insight into the discussion. But I wouldnt be too quick in
assuming that if it's bad for them [Europe in this case] it's good for us!

Best
Sudhir

  	
BIO-IPR docserver | http://www.grain.org/bio-ipr
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TITLE: European Union to Lose US$79 Billion if New U.N. Regulatory
System Created
AUTHOR: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
PUBLICATION: press release via PR Newswire
DATE: 25 May 2005
URL: http://www.mysan.de/article113706.html
NOTE: This follows right on the heels of a report from the Australian
APEC Study Centre, flagged earlier on BIO-IPR, which also tried to argue
that private contracts and unfettered property rights defined by
national law are better than putting conditions on the grant of patents
over biodiversity and traditional knowledge under international law.
________________________________________________________

PRI News Release | 25 May 2005

EUROPEAN UNION TO LOSE US$79 BILLION IF NEW U.N. REGULATORY SYSTEM CREATED

A newly released study by the California-based Pacific Research
Institute for Public Policy (PRI) reveals startling economic impacts for
the European Union if a proposed international regime to govern access-
and benefit-sharing (ABS) of genetic resources takes effect. The
creation of a patent-based ABS regime will be discussed by world
diplomats and policy experts in Geneva on June 6-10 at a meeting of the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 25, PRNewswire -- A newly released study by the
California-based Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI)
reveals startling economic impacts for the European Union if a proposed
international regime to govern access- and benefit-sharing (ABS) of
genetic resources takes effect. The creation of a patent-based ABS
regime will be discussed by world diplomats and policy experts in Geneva
on June 6-10 at a meeting of the World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO).

"Analytically, the new ABS regime would be equivalent to a long-run tax
on biotechnological and pharmaceutical research," said study co-author
Benjamin Zycher, a Senior Fellow at PRI. "Naturally, such a measure
would have significant economic consequences." In the EU alone, Zycher's
findings predict a loss of US$79 billion.

The ABS regime has been proposed by representatives of nations in the
17-member Like Minded Mega-diverse Countries (LMMC) who argue that the
international patent system needs to be further regulated to prevent
biopiracy and to reach the goals of the U.N. Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD), adopted by the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The
17 countries, led by Brazil, would also like to see further
redistribution of the profits created when genetic resources are turned
into modern medicine by pharmaceutical and biotech companies located
primarily in the Western world.

"The mega-diverse countries claim that patent regulations are necessary
to protect the world's biodiversity," said Zycher. "The fact is that the
new ABS regime would undermine the current contract-based system that
will protect research and development much more successfully."

Under current international law, governed by the WIPO and the World
Trade Organization (WTO), biotech companies are free to make contracts
with individual countries, obtaining the right to use genetic resources
from such biodiverse areas as the Brazilian rain forest, and to use
these resources in their product development. The LMMC proposal would
limit the freedom to make contracts by making it more difficult to
protect patents and by imposing unpredictable obligations on biotech
companies to share their future profits.

The PRI study predicts that the proposed ABS regime will have
significant economic impacts on countries in the developed world. Using
a careful methodology that transforms biotechnological and
pharmaceutical research and development into capital stocks, the
detailed study finds that the cumulative loss to the EU15 countries
would be US$79 billion between now and year 2025. By comparison the
United States stands to lose much less -- US$21.6 billion.

"The bottom line is that the best way to protect the world's
biodiversity is to give research-based biotech companies negotiated
property rights to invest in bio-diverse areas," said the study's other
co-author Timothy A. Wolfe. "Without property rights and contracts
enforced under law, the Brazilian rain forest will be left in the hands
of lumberjacks and farmers who need more open land for their cattle."

ABOUT PRI

For 26 years, the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI) has
championed freedom, opportunity, and personal responsibility by
advancing free-market policy solutions. PRI is a non-profit,
non-partisan educational organization based in San Francisco, California.

Web site: http://www.pacificresearch.org