Project Syndicate: IP for the 21st Century Economy

Intellectual property laws can be an obstacle when emerging economies are enduring a health crisis. Writing for Project Syndicate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dean Baker and Arjun Jayadev describe South Africa’s battle against the global pharmaceutical industry as HIV/AIDS swept through the continent. Today South Africa’s leaders are working to develop intellectual property policies to expand access to medicines and other emerging economies may follow their lead. “The IP standards advanced countries favor typically are designed not to maximize innovation and scientific progress, but to maximize the profits of big pharmaceutical companies and others able to sway trade negotiations,” the article notes. “No surprise, then, that large developing countries with substantial industrial bases – such as South Africa, India, and Brazil – are leading the counterattack.” Intellectual property laws as written, by discouraging new applications around the globe, hamper rather than encourage research, and attempts to patent human genes is a case in point. A US court prohibiting such patents has allowed the research to flourish. The article concludes that health and wellbeing should take priority over the profits for a few. – YaleGlobal