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That WTO complaint: a Kat is mildly puzzled

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

It is now known that Brazil and India are each launching complaints to the World Trade Organization regarding the seizure within the European Union territory of generic pharma products which, being made in India and destined for Brazil, were not put on to the market in the EU. Describing the casus belli on the IP Tango weblog, the IPKat's friend José Carlos Vaz e Dias writes:

"The conflicts involving Brazil started back in November/December 2009 when a shipment of 500 kilos of the generic drug Losartan® was seized at the Rotterdam port. The cargo left India with Brazil as its final destination, but had a stop over at the Rotterdam Port. Soon after the Dutch customs authorities realized that the generic drugs manufactured in India had existing valid patents for Losartan® in the EU, they informed the company that holds the patents for that drug - Merck Sharp & Dohme - which quickly obtained an injunction to restrain the importation transit procedure".

The IPKat keeps getting puzzled by all of this. He's not sure precisely where in India the generic Losartan is made, but he has looked carefully at his atlas and it does appear to him that Rotterdam is not terribly close to even the nearest bit of India. And, while Rotterdam is great for transportation purposes because it's on a big river and by the sea, there's no convenient overland passage from India. He believes that Losartan doesn't have an indefinite shelf life and that, therefore, it's a good idea to get it to its destination sooner rather than later. Also, it's not as if the cargo is coal: it was just 500kg of the stuff that was seized in transit. That's surely a good deal lighter than the Indian cricket team, which generally goes by air ...

Full post as published by IPKat on May 14, 2010 (boomark / email).