See the bottom of the message to see a nice reply which looks the other side of the issue. My friend Amar got this reply from one of his friends.

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:05:41 +0530, Praveen A pravi.a@gmail.com wrote:

Dear Friends,

Patents are a devious tool to harm developing countries' development. Not only will patents harm software; but will also lead to rise in prices of medicines. [Read further for more info]

What you can do ?

a) Post this on your blog/website too if you have one b) Email this to as many people as you know c) Email to the Editor of various magazines, newspapers that we don't want patents d) Email to the President of India and any political party in India who has an email

Why are patents bad ?

Below are some medicines whose cost are given as follows (In India in Rupees) [In US in Rupees] CIPROFLOXACIN (29 Rupees) [2353 Rupees] DICHLOPHENAC (4 Rupees) [675 Rupees] These are just two examples. Wondering why medicines are SO cheap in India? This is because India had a big pharmaceutical industry. They can produce drugs at a fraction of the cost at what Merck wants to sell them for. Infact the drug prices are way lower in India than in Pakistan next door because India happened to develop its own pharmaceutical industry.

Note: Because India had its own patent law which allows only process patent for food, chemicals and drugs.

The American Corporations don't like that .They want more children to die in India. They want more profit; which means more children die in India. They want to make sure that India doesn't produce drugs costing less than the American counterparts. Now this is done in two ways under GATT. One way is to increase the length of patents. The other is to change their character from Process Patent to Product Patent.

Note: Quoted from a speech by Noam Chomsky

The thing that made American prices higher is now put up as an Ordinance in India. It is being considered in next Session of our Parliament.

Note: Half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. See the news report from msnbc http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6895896/

So we need to ACT now before it is too late, before we will need to burn our pocket before even buying a tablet of Disprin or the like. Please follow the actions as mentioned above to spread this fact among as many people, so that this Bill is not passed.

Note: Global Campaign against Indian Patents Amendment (GCAIPA) is a forum to co-ordinate the actions against the Patents amendment bill globally. http://gcaipa.org/

Maybe, the legislature will listen… But let us try our best.

Note: All this happens because the rulers think that the common people are donkeys and considering the fact that the low literacy rate is one cause, it is all the more important that we, the previlaged minority, who enjoys the advatages of education has a greater responsibilty. --

PS: You might be wondering why this important issue is not discussed in the mass media or in the parliament.

1. Do you know that the ordinance was issued after 3 days of closing the session
2. It was issued hurriedly when the nation was facing the Tsunami

disaster and all the media attenstion was there. 3. People think it is not their problem untill they face it personally.

For more deatils see my bolg http://www.livejournal.com/~pravi and these posts

1. IS Rs. 29 = Rs. 2353 ? http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi/11432.html
2. Changing rules of patents http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi/11699.html
3. Patent laws http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi/11927.html and

http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi/12417.html

We didn't consider the recommendations by the committes which we appointed to study patents and we are even giving more than what they asked for (loyal than the king) [even WTO did not ask for patenting of life forms and we are allowing evn that -- patenting of life forms like ameba, fungus ...]

Countries like Brazil are aware of these issues and they framed the rule to protect their people. See the news report from BBC - Brazil to break Aids drug patents.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4059147.stm

Our Government did not think of our people and they are selling the people of India for some Dollars. [See after this rule comes into place not only the poor but even the middle class cannot afford the medicines. The medical treatment is going to be available to only an elite minority.]

It is already happened with Lukemia patients. Indian companies produce drugs for treatment of Lukemia at Rs 99 a capule and 4 per day it amounts to Rs 12,000 per month. Many cannot afford that and now after the change in patent rule of 1995 [It increased the duration of patents from 7 to 20 years] an MNC called Novartis filed a case in Chennai high court saying it has patent for its drug Gleevec. The Chennai high court stopped the production of drugs by Indian companies and now the only drug available for Lukemia patients is Gleevec of Novartis. And the cost -- Rs 1,25,000 only !!!!!

We should not sit idle. It is time to act !!!!

---

-- "There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com My Weblog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Rediscover the web ! Get firefox at http://www.getfirefox.com Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

Hello Amar, its really nice cing a wonderful mail 4m u.i do appreciate ur concern for the people of the thirld world.but u r missing one important point in ur mail- Removal of patents may lead to the end of Reasearch and Development in the world.If there are no patents no firm will be trying to find out a medicine for AIDS or any other diseases like that.In order to develop a product they need to pour 100 s of crores for a span of 7-10 years,who is going to repay their costs?? the only way to recover their costs is through patents!. i am neither pro rich nor in support of life time patents.The only point iam stressing is to find innovative ways to crack this problem.Some of the ways i suggest is 1. Its better if these MNC's have tie ups will low cost destinations like INDIA for their Reasearch activities, so that the cost of development is much lesser, so that they can recover their expenses within less duration resulting in reduction of Patenting period. 2.The other best way is the government should take the reponsibilty of bearing the expenses of reasearch, but it may sometimes reflect in increase of taxes. 3.The other way is the firms doing research may float some bonds relating to that particular product and the persons possesing those bonds are eligible for some concessions while purchasing those products in addition to that the bond holders becomes life time partners as far as that particular product is concerned. This may give rise to some accounting difficulties. 4.The other way is the health insurance permium is made a bit high and it should be made compulsory for all these health insurance firms to invest in research of life saving medicines. But in such cases if there is any failures in the results of the research, the insurance firms may be bancrupt and governments should come for their rescue. 5. The other better way is on the same lines of WTO and IMF we do have World Research form where the scientists were employed from all over the world.As far as funding is concerned its better if IMF gives them loans. In case of any failure in Research their loans should be waved off, here comes the actual problem like who is going to bear their losses. 6.All the above things that are suggested cannot be implemented immediately, the immediate measures that can be taken are better we have a global agency which estimates the patenting period,there should be some clauses in the patenting rule in order to reduce the cost of some life saving medicines,the goverment should subsidise the cost of medicines as it is subsidising kerosene,gas..etc., the amout that is spent through subsidy should be recovered by haing some cess on Pubs,Bars,Cigarettes,Liquor,Brand launch events,Special events like New year celebrations,start Casions at some tourist destinations that to only for foreigners and people who earns above one lakh per month. Dear Amar iam very sorry if i had hurt any of ur feelings, the mail u had sent is totally biased, now the current mail has both sides of coin, better u start a blog on this issue and try to have debate among so called educated people so, that v can have better ideas, better views and better solutions.