11 Amendments of Antoni COMÍN I OLIVERES related to 2021/2007(INI)
Amendment 7 #
2. Calls on the Commission to continue strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and enforcement in non-EU countries through EU-funded technical cooperation programmes by increasing funding for targeted technical assistance and capacity-building around IPR; welcomes in particular the intention to promote better generation and management of intellectual property (IP) on the African continent as part of a joint partnership building on the current four- year cooperation programme for Africa;
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. Welcomes that the Commission intends to ensure that R&I results achieved using EU funds are used for the benefit of the EU economy when IP on R&I results is to be exploited primarily in non-associated countries; stresses, however, that such condition should not be strictly required when results protected by EU-funded IPRs are exploited in low and low-middle income developing countries, and that instead applicants should explain how the candidate R&I project can critically contribute to the attainment of the SDGs in the country or group of countries concerned;
Amendment 19 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. SCalls on the Commission to boost research to determine how the IP strategies of companies based in developing countries differ from firms located in developed countries, and how legal systems in developing countries address IP protection; strongly encourages the Commission to assist producers and their associations as well as local authorities in developing countries in unlocking the potential of IP and reaping the economic value of local innovations, geographical indications and traditional knowledge; reiterates its call, in this regard, to respect the progress achieved in the international protection of indigenous peoples’ rights over their genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3 a. Calls on the Commission to ensure that owners of standard essential patents commit to license their patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms in developing countries;
Amendment 24 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recognises that IP systems contribute to the development of new medicines, but stresses that they must comply with international human rights law and public health requirements; notes that strong IPRs may limit access to medicines in developing countries while not necessarily encouraging pharmaceutical innovation that responds to the needs of developing countries; underlines, in this regard, that the current legal system on IPRs is not boosting enough research on diseases that are recurrent in developing countries, such as malaria or zika, due to lack of potential profitability; calls on the Commission and Member States to increase efforts to offer qualified technical assistance and research funding in view of developing vaccines that prevent future outbreaks of such diseases;
Amendment 29 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Believes that full enjoyment of IPRs is legitimate in sofar as R&I results protected by patents are not generated with public investment; stresses that, when an invention is generated with are levant amount of public funding, a fair share of patent rights should be secured in favour of the public administration concerned; consequently, calls on the Commission to issue a legislative proposal to create a system of public ownership of IPRs on inventions that are generated with substantive public funding, in which case any product covered by this type of patent should be subject to open and non- exclusive licensing; believes that this legislation should establish that public administrations are entitled to hold partial ownership of IPRs if, despite the know- how of a company, the protected invention could not have been generated without public funding or would only have been developed over a much longer time span;
Amendment 38 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Welcomes, as a positive step, the recently announced US support for a proposal to temporarily waive certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade- Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19; urges the Commission, therefore, to follow through on its promise to engage in active and constructive text-based negotiations at World Trade Organization level. and support the temporary waiver of Sections 1, 4, 5 and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement in order to increase the production of COVID-19 vaccines in the shortest time possible;
Amendment 44 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Notes that a temporay waiver of the TRIPS agreement on COVID-19 vaccines' patents could also help to create diverse regional manufacturing hubs and protect the EU and the rest of the world from supply chain disruptions in future pandemics;
Amendment 45 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 b (new)
Paragraph 5 b (new)
5 b. Calls on the Commission to engage in negotiations at the World Trade Organization to simplify the use of compulsory licenses under the TRIPS Agreement and provide more legal certainty to countries that use this flexibility, especially regarding the compensation to be paid; calls on the Commission to provide developing countries with technical assistance to enable the effective implementation of the current compulsory licensing framework when the circumstances provided for in Article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement occur in these countries, and to ensure that Member States smoothly implement Regulation (EC) No 816/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on compulsory licensing of patents to export when requested by developing countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity facing public health crises; welcomes, in this regard, that the Commission explores with Member States the possibility of creating an emergency coordination mechanism to be triggered when Member States consider issuing a compulsory license;
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 c (new)
Paragraph 5 c (new)
5 c. Calls on the Commission to refrain from seeking expansive IP chapters in Free Trade Agreements with middle- income and low-middle income developing countries, such as TRIPS-plus measures, and to review the existing ones in order to ensure that they are in line with the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health;
Amendment 51 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 d (new)
Paragraph 5 d (new)
5 d. Calls on the Commission to support developing countries in reviewing their national IP laws taking into account available flexibilities, especially the LDCs transition waivers and those not commonly used in these countries, such as the research exception and the regulatory review exception;