MEDIA REACTION - IPR AND THE U.S.-CHILE FTA

UNCLAS SANTIAGO 000211 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR R/MR, I/PP, WHA/BSC, WHA/PDA, WHA/EPSC STATE FOR INR/IAA, PM, INL E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR KPAO OPRC KIPR ETRD CI SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION - IPR AND THE U.S.-CHILE FTA ¶1. On February 6, conservative, independent "La Tercera" (circ. 101,000) carried a column by University of Chile law professor Gabriel Zaliasnik. The article failed to note that Zaliansnik also is the attorney for Chile's association of local pharmaceutical companies. Quote: ¶2. "In the past few weeks we have seen an unusual communications campaign from the transnational pharmaceutical industry, which protected by USTR... has tried to show that Chile is not complying with IPR in the FTA it signed with the United States.... But nothing is farther from the truth. ¶3. "Allegedly Chile would be failing in two areas: The alleged prohibition for the ISP to grant a sanitary authorization to pharmaceutical products that have an invention patent and the alleged use -- when granting the respective sanitary authorization -- of confidential information.... Neither one of these statements is true. ¶4. "The USG and the foreign pharmaceutical industry know very well that the sanitary authorization granted by the Public Health Institute (ISP -- Chile's FDA equivalent) is not a commercialization authorization. They also know that the ISP does not have the authority to reject granting a sanitary authorization based on IPR.... In Chile, the entities that protect IPR are the Ministry of Finance's Industrial Property Department, the Industrial Property Institute that will replace it, the Industrial Property Tribunal...and ordinary courts of justice. That is why it is foolish to insist that the ISP must deny sanitary authorization based on IPR, in what Americans call linkage.... ¶5. "Furthermore, when the U.S. signed the FTA with Chile it knew that local legislation did not consider linkage.... The accusation that Chile would be using confidential information is not acceptable either. The 19.996 IPR law was added to our legislation to protect data as agreed in the FTA with the United States.... Obviously U.S. pharmaceuticals are unhappy with the text of the treaty with regard to IPR, but it is unacceptable for this objection to be reflected in an unusual communications campaign, when the U.S. government negotiated and signed the treaty. ¶6. "Chile has not violated the FTA, but if it had, the treaty has a dispute resolution mechanism. Why hasn't the U.S. resorted to it? Perhaps because the accusations in the campaign are weak and would not resist the scrutiny of a panel of experts." KELLY