Phillippines goverment in a bid to provide cheaper generics to its people will amend patent law, which will favour genrics.
IP provisions included in the final draft of the bicameral bill are formidable. These include:
o adopting the principle of international exhaustion of intellectual property rights (IPR) for drugs and medicines to improve access to cheaply priced drugs anywhere in the world without risk of patent infringement;
o narrowing the definition of what medicines can be patented by disallowing the practice of evergreening ¯ patent coverage for "new uses" of existing, already patented substances;
o providing for a broad parallel importation provision to allow the government to procure quality, affordable patented drugs and medicines from other countries;
o providing additional means to issue compulsory licenses so that the government can easily set aside patent restrictions in response to public health threats; and
o adopting an "early working" or Bolar provision, which ensures that affordable versions of patented medicines can be introduced into the Philippines market immediately upon patent expiration.The bicameral version also adopted Section 93-A that was introduced in the House bill, which provides an alternative procedure for the issuance of a special compulsory license under the framework of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.The IPO itself has declared that these amendments are a legitimate exercise of the flexibilities accorded to developing countries like the Philippines in the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS and Public Health.The World Trade Organization (WTO) had adopted the TRIPS Agreement in November 2001. More than six years later, however, such flexibilities have yet to be incorporated in Philippine intellectual property law that would have made it more responsive to the problem of inaccessible medicines and expensive drug prices. (For complete article link to manilatimes)
