The US pharmaceutical lobby is urging the Office of the US Trade Representatives (USTR) to keep Israel on its priority watch list of countries in violation of intellectual property rights. Minister of Justice Joseph (Tomy) Lapid told “Globes” last night that this lobbying was the reason that Israel is still included on the list, despite progress in fighting intellectual property violations.
Lapid and Ministry of Justice international agreements and international litigation department director Dr. Shavit Matias told senior USTR and Justice Department officials that Israel ought to be removed from the priority watch list, or at least be placed on the less restrictive “watch list”
The USTR publishes the priority watch list every April 30, and is currently discussing the composition of the various lists.
The US-Israeli disagreement focuses on a technical matter: the leaking of documents of US pharmaceutical companies delivered to the Ministry of Health for the purpose of licensing their sale in Israel.
The US claims the Ministry of Health maintains a less restrictive allows Israeli generic pharmaceutical companies, such as Teva (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE:TEVA), access to documents of US companies whose ethical drug patents are due to lapse, thereby violating intellectual property rights of those companies.
Matias said a different lobby, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which defends US movie and music copyrights, has stated that the damage caused to US copyrights by Israeli intellectual property right violations dropped 48% to $82 million in 2002 from $159 million in 2001, while copyright violations by countries on the watch list, such as Chile and Italy, rose.
Matias said Israel wants the IIPA position taken into account, and not just the position of the pharmaceutical lobby.
Israel’s position on the USTR priority watch list is still unknown. There is little chance that Israel will be delisted entirely, but it might be moved to the watch list, despite the big pharma lobbying effort.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on April 2, 2003