India in talks with EU, Australia and Japan to allay TRIPS waiver concerns

Last October, India and South Africa had submitted a joint proposal for temporarily waiving sections of TRIPS to help more countries, especially middle and low income ones access Covid-19 vaccines

India is trying to alleviate the concerns of a bunch of developed nations such as Australia, Japan and the regional bloc, and the European Union (EU), regarding its proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) towards temporary patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines and drugs.

In October 2020, India and South Africa had submitted a joint proposal for temporarily waiving some sections of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, to help more countries, especially middle and low income nations get access to Covid-19 vaccines. It will be applicable to industrial design, trade secrets, patents and copyrights.

As of now, over 100 nations are supporting the proposal, of which 64 are co-sponsors of the proposals at the WTO.

However, the member nations at the WTO are yet to reach any consensus on this topic, with some developed nations such as European Union, Australia, the UK among others have opposed the proposal. The matter will also be discussed at the  12th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) that will kickstart from 30 November.

“India has also engaged in small group discussions with nations that had issues--Australia, Switzerland, Japan. They had reservations on India (and South Africa’s) proposal.So they highlighted their concerns and raised questions in the meetings. We have in detail given answers to all the questions raised by them,” one of the officials cited above said.

Some of the member nations had reservations that the TRIPS agreement has inbuilt flexibilities, which allows use of compulsory licensing mechanisms and there is no requirement for a waiver.

According to the WTO, compulsory licensing is when a government allows someone else to produce a patented product without the consent of the patent owner. It is one of the flexibilities in the field of patent protection included in the WTO’s agreement on intellectual property or TRIPS.

India has expressed its view by saying that these flexibilities are not enough to deal with the challenge of inequitable distribution of vaccines, especially across low income nations. The developed countries are of the view that voluntary licensing is the better way out and pharmaceutical companies should be persuaded to part with their technology

“We have seen prices of drugs shooting up during the pandemic treatment. voluntary licencing has not worked out. Similarly, compulsory licencing isn’t easy and there are uncertainties associated with it. These changes will be temporary and within the legal framework. These are exceptional circumstances. It can also be reviewed every year by a WTO panel--is what India has been telling countries that are opposing the proposal,” another official said.