The video in this tweet is well worth watching. Mary Robinson is speaking truth to power - and saying that, in effect, the power to impose patent royalties on the poorest is a regressive tax - that hits their incomes, their wellbeing and their health.
This form of private taxation is becoming more pernicious by the day. It should be at the heart of tax justice debate:
There is still humanity in the world....Mary Robinson speaking truth to the power of drug companies https://t.co/0H3MD3YDLX
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) May 1, 2021
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I am suspicious of the very concept of intellectual property. First of all the term is used to cover a vast range of laws: patent law, copyright law, trademark law, plant variety monopoly law, trade secret law, IC mask monopoly law etc that actually have very little in common other than being lumped together under the umbrella of IP. Secondly they have evolved away from forms that reflect their original justifications to little more than rent seeker’s charters. However the current behaviour of drug companies over the vaccine patents they hold strikes me as peculiarly and especially egregious.
It would be nice to see some detail around this idea.
The difficulty I have is that you appear to want patent waivers for vaccines that have not completed their clinical trials, and are being put into arms using emergency authorisations on dosing timescales you disagree with. But you don’t want those patent waivers to apply to higher income countries presumably. So what are the income criteria to establish who gets to produce under licence but with a patent waiver.
And what problem will this solve when there isn’t any space in vaccine factories which can provably make covid vaccines safely at the moment.
And what about the behavioural changes following the abolition of the IP for the low income countries. I don’t think the people in low income countries have been consulted on whether they would like the totality of human ingenuity to increase even if it means a delay in them catching up on incomes.
I actually so no reason for patent rights on these drugs
They were developed with public money and massive government support
I did not argue for the right to charge a fee anywhere
I have reservations on the rights of intellectual property right holders everywhere. The balance is clearly wrong
Agreed entirely.
But its the double standards that get me: only greedy private bastards are allowed to make money out of nothing whilst sovereign states cannot meet the needs of the people by doing the same apparently.
I’m all for true innovators being rewarded, but those who ride on the back of existing natural phenomenon claiming they’ve ‘discovered something’ get right up my nose. They are claiming the future and then spending their time ensuring that that future will actually materialise.
The late Richard Douthwaite used the medieval idea of ‘Fair Price’ in his writing which might be worth a look at.
IN addition George Monbiot made an interesting comment on rent and land prices as a private tax as we all have to live somewhere
https://www.monbiot.com/2019/07/19/private-taxation/
Much to talk about