Republished from Times Live. This article was originally published on 6 December at http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2012/12/06/review-medicine-patents
By Katharine Child
HEALTH activists say South Africa’s patent system allows pharmaceutical companies to license any drug they wish, making many medicines prohibitively expensive.
The Treatment Action Campaign’s Catherine Tomlinson said: “Today companies can make minor changes to drugs and get a new 20-year patent. We think this loophole needs to be closed.”
But patent lawyer Danie Dohmen warned that challenges to the strong patent system could have an impact on the wider economy.
Dohmen said “an examination system or a slow patent-registering process would affect all industries that file patents, such as mining, agriculture and manufacturing.
“One must be careful of unforeseen consequences of a proposed patent examination system. Patents protect knowledge and enhance development in general.”
But activists say they are not targeting the economy – they just want affordable medicines.
University of KwaZuluNatal law professor Yousuf Vawda believes pharmaceutical patents make many drugs inaccessible to the public. “Cancer drugs are among the most extremely expensive drugs in the world, including in South Africa, primarily because they are patent-protected.”
Vawda said patents were granted to companies without an examination of whether the product or process met legal standards for patents.
Thousands of pharmaceutical patents were issued in South Africa, where there is no patent examination, compared to Brazil where there is examination.
“A total of 2442 such patents were granted in 2008 alone, yet Brazil granted 275 in six years,” he said.
The TAC is calling for a patent review office to replace the current system in which all patents are granted automatically.
Lawyer Dohmen asked: “Where would we get the experts, engineers and chemists for a review office?”
Currently, all invalid patents need to be challenged in court.
Vawda said that it was time-consuming and expensive to challenge a patent in court, resulting in few such patents ever being challenged.
Pharmaceutical Industry Association of South Africa CEO Vicki St Quintin said that, under a weakened patent system, “pharmaceutical companies could be discouraged from bringing innovative medicines to the South African market”.
Also, a change to patent laws was unlikely to affect the research agendas of international companies but could affect local access to medicines.