Industry Groups Urge Hatch, White House Collaboration To Prevent UN Document Language From Threatening IP

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and five other industry groups jointly urged Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to work with President Barack Obama’s administration to “safeguard innovation” by preventing IP issues from being mentioned in high-level policy documents at multilateral institutions like the U.N. The other groups signing onto a joint letter to Hatch were the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Foreign Trade Council, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the U.S. Council for International Business. Technical and IP experts within the office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the departments of Commerce and State coordinated to prevent the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), adopted in December, from including IP, the industry groups said in the letter. The Obama administration's work to prevent IP from becoming part of the UNFCCC “thus removes uncertainty that could have discouraged continued investments by U.S. companies in clean technology,” the groups said. Similar challenges to IP protection “are proliferating throughout the UN system, and the approach adopted by the U.S. delegation” during the UNFCCC “could be applied to other UN initiatives,” including the U.N. Technology Facilitation Mechanism, the U.N. High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines and the World Health Organization’s ongoing work on the Framework for Engagement with Non-State Actors, the industry groups said. “Inter-governmental organizations that are discriminatory towards business, or that focus on a limited range of factors potentially inhibiting innovation deployment, undermine evidence-based policy-making and hobble the delivery of solutions to healthcare and other sustainability challenges.”