implementing legislation and many are still engaged in establishing adequate IPR enforcement mechanisms. Every year, the U.S. Government provides extensive technical assistance and training on the implementation of the TRIPS Agreement to a large number of U.S. trading partners. Such assistance is provided by a number of U.S. Government agencies, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Copyright Office, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Commerce. This assistance is provided on a country-by-country basis, as well as in group seminars, including those co-sponsored with the WIPO and the WTO. In addition, U.S. industry is actively involved in providing specific enforcement-oriented training in key markets around the world. Technical assistance involves the review of, and drafting assistance on, laws concerning intellectual property and enforcement. Training programs usually cover the substantive provisions of the TRIPS Agreement as well as the enforcement provisions. The United States will continue to work with WTO members and expects further progress in the near term to complete the TRIPS implementation process. However, in those instances in which additional progress is not achieved, the United States will consider other means of encouraging implementation, including the possibility of dispute settlement consultations.
The United States urges all WTO members to swiftly complete their TRIPS implementation process, as it believes that compliance with the minimum standards set forth in the TRIPS Agreement is important for ensuring social and economic development.
Intellectual Property and Health Policy
The Administration is dedicated to addressing the serious health problems, such as HIV/AIDS, afflicting least-developed countries in Africa and elsewhere. The United States is firmly of the conviction that intellectual property protection, including for pharmaceutical patents, is critical to the long term viability of a health care system capable of developing new and innovative lifesaving medicines. Intellectual property rights are necessary to encourage rapid innovation, development, and commercialization of effective and safe drug therapies. Financial incentives are needed to develop new medications; no one benefits if research on such products is discouraged.
At the same time, the United States is also firmly of the view that international obligations such as those in the TRIPS Agreement have sufficient flexibility to allow countries, particularly developing and least-developed countries, to address the serious public health problems that they face.
At the WTO Doha Ministerial in November 2001, WTO Ministers issued a separate Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, acknowledging the serious public health problems afflicting African and other developing and least-developed country members, especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other epidemics. Ministers agreed that intellectual property rules contain flexibilities to meet the dual objectives of, on the one hand, meeting the needs of poor countries without the resources to pay for cutting edge pharmaceuticals and, on the other hand, ensuring that the patent rights system continues to promote the development and creation of new lifesaving drugs.
