The Development of the Case Sample Clauses

The Development of the Case. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PMA), joined by 39 international pharmaceutical corporations, filed suit on 18 February 1998, in South Africa’s High Court (In the High Court of South Africa, Case Number 4138/98). The case was to be heard at the Constitutional Court in Pretoria in March 2001 (the case was delayed again, reportedly on account of technical objections by the drug companies and was to resume on 18 April, 2001). The same pattern of events has unfolded elsewhere. Whatever the letter of the WTO law, pharmaceutical companies had pressed for very restrictive policies on the use of compulsory licensing - and their demands had usually been supported by the USTR200. The PMA charged that the South African government, in Section 15 of its Medicines and Related Substances Control Act, was in violation of its obligations to TRIPS Agreement. Adherence to the TRIPS Agreement is a condition of membership in the World Trade Organization. Among other things, XXXXX assures uniform and exclusive patent protection for intellectual property (including drugs), for a minimum patent life of 20 years. During the protected period the patent holder maintains the exclusive rights to make, use, sell, or import the patented product in a given country. According to the PMA, both parallel importing and compulsory licensing of patented AIDS drugs are prohibited under TRIPS and therefore are inconsistent with South Africa’s WTO membership. 199 Bond 1999. op.cit. 200 “Patents, TRIPs & Public Health”, from Oxfam paper.op.cit In fact, the PMA’s position is not supported, or at best only weakly supported, by a close reading of the TRIPS Agreement 201 In the case of parallel importing, the TRIPS Agreement explicitly states (in Article 6) that nothing in the Agreement should be taken to apply to the issue. In the case of compulsory licensing, Article 31 of TRIPS specifies procedures by which a WTO member country may apply to a patent holder for permission to manufacture generic versions of a protected product, a procedure that may be waived “in the case of a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency.” Ironically, the United States itself considered very similar actions in order to bring down the price of Ciprofloxacin at the height of the anthrax scare in the fall of 2001.202 From the time the PMA lawsuit was filed, a global coalition formed in support of the South African government’s position and buried the pharmaceutical industry un...