Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15857

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Publication type: news

Daniel FJ, Allen V.
Chavez may end patents on medicine in Venezuela
Reuters 2009 Jun 21
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2148323120090621

Full text:

President Hugo Chavez has vowed to shake up the rules governing intellectual property rights on medicines and other products in Venezuela, the socialist’s latest move against the private sector.

“A song is intellectual property, but an invention or a scientific discovery should be knowledge for the world, especially medicine,” Chavez said late on Saturday.

“That a laboratory does not allow us to make a medicine because they have the patent, no, no, no,” Chavez said.

Chavez, who has nationalized many Venezuela industries and is critical of the private sector, ordered his trade minister to analyze the patent rules in the OPEC nation.

“Patents have become a barrier to production, and we cannot allow them to be barriers to medicine, to life, to agriculture,” said the minister, Eduardo Saman, who previously headed Venezuela’s patent agency.

“We are revising all the doctrines and laws related to patents, which should be compatible with the international treaties that we have signed and respect and honor.”

Chavez recently criticized Swedish packaging maker Tetra Pak, saying its patents on cartons were limiting production in Venezuela.