# \[e-drug\] Academics/Expert's open letter in support of Brazil's Patent Law Reform **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [July 9, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-academics-experts-open-letter-in-support-of-brazils-patent-law-reform/39203 "2013-07-09T18:00:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![b.baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@b.baker](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/b.baker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-academics-experts-open-letter-in-support-of-brazils-patent-law-reform/39203/1 "2013-07-09T18:00:37Z")
E-DRUG: Academics/Expert's open letter in support of Brazil's Patent Law Reform -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soliciting sign-ons Colleagues I am writing to solicit signatures from global academics and pharmaceutical experts with respect to pro-health patent reforms in Brazil. Sean Flynn, Amy Kapczynski, and I have worked on an academics/experts letter and brief technical review which are available at: [http://infojustice.org/support-brazil](http://infojustice.org/support-brazil). (If you have brief, crucial editing suggestions, please send to b.baker@neu.edu\). As many of you may have heard, Brazil has been engaged in a long process of studying patent law reform and in August 2013 (originally scheduled for July 10, 2013) will be issuing a major report and proposed legislative reforms. In sum, as detailed in (1) an open letter from academics and experts and (2) its attached brief technical review which has the text of the proposed bill as an annex, Brazil is seeking to incorporate lawful TRIPS flexibilities into its patent law including: eliminating patent term extensions and data exclusivity, restricting patents on new forms and new uses and tightening the the inventive step requirement (following the India example), adopting a government use procedures, and clarifying the role that ANVISA, its drug regulatory agency, plays in the patent examination system. If you wish to sign-on, please provide the following information at the infojustice site, or you can email the same to b.baker@neu.edu\: Name Institutional affiliation Country Whether you sign on to the letter only or to the letter and the technical review. In our judgment, this is a very important moment where Brazil is rectifying past mistakes when it prematurely adopted TRIPS-plus measures under pressure from the U.S. The proposed patent reform demonstrates growing momentum in low- and middle-income countries to maximize use of TRIPS-compliant flexibilities to help ensure access to medicines for all. We believe that the support of academics and other experts is useful both internally to help support adoption in Brazil and externally to counteract what is certain to be strong negative reaction from the US and EU and Big Pharma. Professor Brook K. Baker Northeastern U. School of Law Affiliate, Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy 400 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 USA Honorary Research Fellow, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, S. Africa Senior Policy Analyst Health GAP (Global Access Project) Alternate NGOs Board Member UNITAID b.baker@neu.edu