Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute

Professor Duncan Matthews speaks on the implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for access to medicines at the Australian National University

14 May 2014

Professor Duncan Matthews spoke as part of the the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) seminar series at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra on Tuesday 13 May. 

Duncan Matthews is Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary University of London. He argued that Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) may well have adverse implications for access to medicines since the leaked text of the TPPA's Intellectual Property (IP) Chapter indicates that proposals relating to patent term, data exclusivity and patent linkage are in excess of arrangements currently in place in countries participating in negotiations (Australia, Brunei Darusssalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam). He compared the TPPA IP Chapter proposals with equivalent provisions in the US-South Korea (KORUS) Agreement, the Canada-EU Comprehensive Trade Agreement (CETA) and negotiations on a US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Agreement to present an overall picture of the pressure to raise IP standards on a global scale.