AMITI SEN..........................................

New Delhi, May 22

India, South Africa and theother co-sponsors of the pro-posal for temporary waiver ofTRIPS provisions for checkingthe spread of Covid-19 havenarrowed the scope of thewaiver to ‘health productsand technologies’ but not re-stricted it to just vaccines, aswas being suggested by somecountries, including the US.

The revised waiver proposalcirculated at the WTO on Fri-day suggests a duration ofminimum three years for itsapplicability, leaving the re-sponsibility of terminating iton the WTO General Council.

“The best thing about therevision is that the co-spon-sors have not given in to pres-sure from countries (such asthe US and some European na-tions) to restrict the waiver tojust vaccines. The co-sponsorshave left the scope of thewaiver open to all medicalproducts and technologieswhich is what is needed,” KMGopakumar, Senior Re-searcher, Third World Net-work (TWN), toldBusinessLine.

TRIPS pactThe revision addresses theconcern of specifi��city by fo-cussing on ‘health productsand technologies’ as the pre-vention, treatment or contain-ment of Covid-19 involves arange of products and techno-logies, and intellectual prop-

erty issues may arise with re-spect to the products andtechnologies, their materialsor components, as well astheir methods and means ofmanufacture, per the co-spon-sors. “Sections under Part IIIof the TRIPS Agreement, shallbe waived in relation tohealth products and technolo-gies including diagnostics,therapeutics, vaccines, med-ical devices, personal protect-ive equipment, their materi-als or components, and theirmethods and means of manu-facture for the prevention,treatment or containment ofCovid-19,” the revised decisiontext said.

The waiver shall not applyto the protection of Per-formers, Producers of Phono-grams (Sound Recordings)and Broadcasting Organisa-tions under Article 14 of theTRIPS Agreement, it added.

“The exclusion was neces-

sary to give a message toother members that develop-ing countries were only inter-ested in a waiver for vaccines,medicines and medicalproducts for treatment ofCovid-19 and not for broad-casting material related to thepandemic,” Gopakumar said.

The IP waiver proposal wasfi��rst submitted by SouthAfrica and India on October 2and since then co-sponsoredby about 60 members includ-ing the African Group and theLDC Group and is aimed at“prevention, containment ortreatment” of Covid-19. Awaiver would allow patentedmedical products and vac-cines to be manufactured andsupplied by generic producerswithout the need for licencesfrom the patent holder.

The revised text fi��xed theminimum period of thewaiver at three years from thedate of the decision. “The Gen-eral Council shall, thereafter,review the existence of the ex-ceptional circumstances justi-fying the waiver, and if suchcircumstances cease to exist,the General Council shall de-termine the date of termina-tion of the waiver,” it said.

“There was a disagreementbetween members over thewaiver period with somecountries insisting on fi��veyears. Therefore, it was de-cided to keep it at a minimumof three years with an open-ended time for terminatingit,” an offi��cial tracking thematter said.

India, S. Africa demand TRIPSwaiver for all medical products

The revision addresses theconcern of specifi��city byfocussing on ‘health productsand technologies’

Suggest minimum duration of three years in revised proposal