Evergreen Patents - coming to Australia

[a_unique_person]

Yes, you don't just get a free trade agreement when you sign up with the States, you get the associated baggage like evergreen patents.

One more example of Big Companies contempt for 'free enterprise'.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/06/1091732084185.html?from=storylhs

Patents allow the company that developed a drug to market it free from competition, in return for making public its original data. It is a system that balances reward of innovation in research and development with the public benefit of dispersed knowledge.
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Drug patent evergreening is the single most important strategy that multinational pharmaceutical companies have been using since 1983 in the US (and since 1993 in Canada) to retain profits from "blockbuster" (high sales volume) drugs for as long as possible.

When the original patent over the active compound of a brand-name drug is due to expire, these drug companies often claim large numbers of complex and often highly speculative patents. Laws in the US and Canada require manufacturers to notify the original brand-name patent holders of their intention to market copies at the expiry of the original patent. The original patent holders can then threaten these potential generic competitors with breaching their now "evergreened" patents and seek a court order preventing their marketing approval.

The ultimate consequence could be elderly and poor Australians paying four times the present price for drugs.

The problem is a severe one in the US. In 2002, an extensive inquiry by the US Federal Trade Commission found that as many as 75 per cent of new drug applications by generic drug manufacturers were the subject of legal actions under patent laws by the original brand-name patent owner. These were driving up US drug costs by keeping the cheaper generic versions off the market.

In Canada, a similarly extensive investigation by the Competition Bureau revealed similar problems with drug patent evergreening. It found that the hundreds of legal actions involving evergreening claims were having a disastrous effect on drug prices.
.....

It requires that TGA drug marketing approval be "prevented" indefinitely (not for the 30-month and 24-month periods as in the US and Canada) whenever any type of patent (including a speculative evergreening patent) is merely "claimed".

Yep, a large company can indeginitely delay a generic drug maker from making a drug just by lodging spurious and speculative new 'patent' claims on it, this delay can be indefinitely.

Hardly the action of a 'free' enterprise system.

 

[reprise]

For something totally unrelated to this story, I was checking the prices of certain pharmaceuticals in different nations over the last few years. "Evergreen" patents have a huge impact on pharmaceutical product prices by delaying the introduction of generic versions for extended periods (IIRC, there was one licensed maker of fluoxetine in the US 2001 - there were 11 in Australia the Ausrtalian market). Here's a link to the report (.pdf), which compares the prices of commonly prescribed pharmaceutical products in a number of nations and shows the factors affecting ultimate price, including the relationship between extended patent periods and their impact n competition and price.

 

[Reginald]

The answer is simple.

Save ££££££ or $$$$$$ buying essential drugs.

I'll send people English Drinking water.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3545684.stm

 

[demon]

"Australian Open Source lawyer Brendan Scott is claiming the USA/Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will damage all Australian software development. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald says that developers have probably built products which 'infringe' on U.S. software patents, while the FTA is forcing Australia to adopt DCMA laws."
This is closely coupled with pressure from M$ who see their next source of income as patents not software

Microsoft Wants More Credit for Inventions
Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday July 29, @08:32P
"Bill Gates said Thursday that Microsoft expects to file 3,000 patent applications this year, up from a little over 2,000 last year and 1,000 just a few years ago. 'We think--patent for patent--what we are doing is, if anything, more important than what others are doing,' said Gates, perhaps referring to 'Organizing and displaying photographs based on time,' which the USPTO published just hours before Gates spoke."
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/29/2225246&tid=155&tid=109

Microsoft Patents Grouped Taskbar Buttons

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Jul 01, '04 09:25 PM
from the thought-of-that-before dept.
I_am_Rambi writes "According to the US Patent office, patent #6,756,999 belongs to Microsoft. The patent this time is grouping taskbar icons processes. This is included in Windows XP, and some prior art in X. Looks like it was accepted two days ago."

Looks like the USA is out to patent the world


Against software patents?
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure UK
http://www.ffii.org.uk/index.html

 

[Zep]

Looks like our dear little Johnny is trying to make us the 53rd US state, come hell or high water. Well, he's got another think coming fairly shortly...