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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Prescribing protection
By Niveen WahishThe Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) comes into effect in Egypt on 1 January, 2000, when the five year transitional period granted developing nations following the signing of the agreement -- upon which membership of the World Trade Organisation is conditional -- comes to a close. The domestic pharmaceutical industry, however, will remain exempted from the conditions of the agreement for a further five years.
The imminent implementation of TRIPs has focused attention on the efficacy of Egypt's existing legislation protecting intellectual property rights (IPR), which have recently come under sustained criticism. "Rather poor" is how Michele Villani, economic attaché at the European Delegation in Cairo, described the current regulatory system during the recent conference, Intellectual Property Rights in Egypt, organised by the Business Law Forum, an affiliate of the German Arab Chamber of Commerce, in cooperation with the European Union. Adequate protection of IPR, he added, would be a catalyst for foreign investment.
Legal protection of copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial drawings and designs in Egypt have been in place for half a century. The relevant legislation has occasionally been updated, in an attempt to keep abreast of changing requirements and incorporate new developments such as computer programmes and software. But while there is little argument over the fact that legislation is in place, detailing punitive measures that range from fines to imprisonment, enforcement of the existing legislation is derided as inadequate. That it protects the process of research and development rather than the final product has also drawn criticism from foreign investors.
The rat-bag of existing legislation, though, is soon to be replaced by a new law incorporating the requirements of TRIPS. According to Mohamed Hossam Loutfi, lawyer and a member of the committee responsible for drafting the new legislation, it will be submitted to the People's Assembly this session for approval.
The new law will, according to Loutfi, stipulate tougher penalties, including fines of up to LE10,000, and extend authorial copyright from 50 years following the death of an author to 70.
While the government increasingly acknowledges the significance of TRIPs and IPR protection, the general public lags behind. One common misconception is that the application of adequate intellectual property protection laws will lead to an automatic increase in the price of medicines, as local producers are obliged to pay royalties to the companies that originally developed the drugs. This, though, is unlikely to happen in practice. The 5,000-8,000 drugs currently licensed on the Egyptian market will remain exempt from TRIPS, which, Jeffrey Kemprecos, Middle East director of health care policy and external affairs at pharmaceutical multi-national Merck Sharp and Dohme (Middle East), is keen to point out, will apply only to newly patented drugs.
International drug companies have long lobbied for the application of TRIPS, emphasising the huge sums spent by the industry on research and development -- some $500 million over the past decade, according to Harvey Bale, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations. With such huge sums at stake, drug companies are becoming increasingly reluctant to invest in countries that do not provide adequate patent protection. On the other hand, Bale stressed to the conference audience, investment by the multi-national pharmaceutical companies has been rising in developing countries that have adopted stronger patent protection.
While TRIPs becomes applicable on pharmaceutical products in the domestic market in 2005, Egypt is obliged to accept applications for patents from the beginning of the extended transitional period.
And while patents will only be granted at the end of the transitional period, i.e. in 2005, the developers of the drug must be offered exclusive marketing rights for the product if it is licensed by the health ministry during the transitional period. It is these stipulations, says Mohamed Hossam Loutfi, that prompted the Academy for Scientific Research and Technology to recommend that the additional five-year transitional period for pharmaceutical products be dropped. The Ministry of Justice, though, has yet to act on the recommendation.
Nobody expected plotting a pathway through the minefield of intellectual property rights to be easy, and problems with the application of TRIPs are not unique to the pharmaceuticals industry.
But for those who argue that Egypt will ultimately be the loser come January 2000, Loutfi points to a single, startling fact: in the case of vintage movies alone, Egypt has lost an estimated $750 million annually in royalties as a result of inadequate copyright protection.
