Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Chicago Tribune - April 30, 2007
Bruce Japsen, bjapsen@tribune.com, Tribune staff reporter
In an annual report that documents shortfalls in how U.S. trading partners protect intellectual property, the U.S. Trade Representative elevated Thailand to the "priority watch list" in 2007. The decision represents "a concern that the past year has been characterized by an overall deterioration in the protection and enforcement" of intellectual property.
The 52-page report names 43 countries in all that are being monitored with 10 countries on the most serious, "priority watch list." "Countries on the priority watch list do not provide adequate level of (intellectual priority rights) protection or enforcement, or market access for persons relying on intellectual property protection," the so-called "special 20 report" said of the 10 priority watch list countries, that include China and Russia.
The trade representative said the Thai government in late 2006 and early 2007 announced decisions to issue several "compulsory licenses for several patented pharmaceutical products."
In Abbott's case, the North Chicago-based drug giant has been embroiled in a dispute with Thai officials over pricing of the AIDS drug Kaletra and Thailand's efforts to make generic copies of the medicine that effectively would break Abbott's patent protection. Thailand earlier this year said that it could not afford the price Abbott charges for Kaletra, and planned to use a provision of international trade law that would have allowed it to skirt Kaletra's patent protection and choose other companies to copy the drug. That move represented a significant challenge to Abbott's patent protections.
Abbott countered by announcing that it would not register any newly developed drugs in Thailand, depriving that country of a new form of Kaletra that -- in contrast to the current form -- does not require refrigeration.
AIDS activists, who protested the company just last week, have condemned Abbott's action as "blackmail," suggesting that withholding the Kaletra that does not require refrigeration is putting patients' health at risk. Given Thailand's hot climate and underdeveloped health-care infrastructure, many people do not have access to Abbott's AIDS drugs, the activists charge.
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