Removing some harm from the World Trade Organization

Abstract

Poor countries were induced to enact the strong intellectual property rights required for membership of the World Trade Organization by empty promises of better access to markets and reductions in US farm and EU export subsidies. Patents have prevented access to cheap generic versions of drugs which such countries badly need, such as for the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Registered Trade Mark protection could be equally serious in future, as this will enable tobacco firms to build up their brands through mass advertising. This must cause rapid growth in related diseases. One palliative could be to use some aid funding to buy in the intellectual property of western firms in these countries. In the drugs case, this would allow development of local capacity to produce inexpensive copies, without diminishing global investment in R&D. Success in this could lead to allocation of the much larger amounts that would be needed to extinguish tobacco branding.