US again threatns to suspend patent rights on health hazard grounds..

Apprehension about offering the stringent Product Patent protection to Pharma inventions during the TRIPs negotiations are turning the to be true. Even in developed world, companies holding the key patented medicine were reluctant to offer the medicines to the needy people at the time of community health crises and in order to avoid any catastrophy might govts like US has literally threat to them suspend/ revoke their patent rights over the life saving medicine. Perhaps, most of developing countries are not strong enough to compel any such patent holder to make available the life saving drugs to the public on reasonable prices. We have to ensure that natural human lives are always placed above the profit making motives of legal entities. IPBiz: Washington Post on Tamiflu: U.S. bullies IP owners: "Monday, November 07, 2005 Washington Post on Tamiflu: U.S. bullies IP owners But the U.S. isn't a model of respect for intellectual property, either. Panicked by its own lateness, the Bush administration has bullied Roche into opening a new production operation in the United States; if Roche had refused, the administration was ready to break the patent. Sen. Chuck Schumer has gone further, denouncing Roche for elevating profits above health and demanding that the firm license its technology to other drugmakers or face legislation compelling it to do so. Coming on top of similar bullying four years ago of Bayer, the maker of an anti-anthrax drug, this browbeating sends a clear signal: If you make a drug that turns out to be really important, don't expect patent laws to protect you. <-- by Sebastian Mallaby In the earlier CIPRO confrontation, the 'bullying' pertained to negotiation over price, and there was a related fear that such price negotiation could carry over into a prescription plan for Medicare. See 'Where have you gone, Richard K. Lyon,' Intellectual Property Today, Oct. 2001.