14 - The India Twist to Patent Culture

Summary

The use of patents in relation to public health is especially important in relation to the needs of developing countries to ensure equitable access to “life-saving” patented drugs. Since the USA has been pursuing a stringent protection regime for drugs marketed by US patentees, however, it becomes all the more essential to highlight such concerns among developing countries. Recently Brazil, China, and India have individually been at the forefront of challenges to US patent policy; other countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Singapore are bound together in such campaigns by colonial after-effects of the British Empire. This chapter considers implications of the pricing of patented drugs for AIDS/HIV and cancer patients in developing countries, specifically India and argues that these should be considered in a distinct category of “positive discrimination.” Looking at the role of the relevant stakeholders – governments, civil society, and pharmaceutical companies – it explores how India and Brazil have seamlessly taken the lead in determining the optimum use of compulsory licensing measures to ensure that patented drugs are available to all.