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Indonesia Stops Sharing Avian Virus Samples

Posted by kdawson on from the intellectual-property-flu dept.

dankrabach writes "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake. The country, one of the hardest-hit by avian flu, has stopped submitting virus samples to the World Health Organization, and is negotiating to sell them to an American drug company that makes the vaccine. They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines. Logical to me, given the rules of the game; however, can't we come up with some GPL'ish license to free any product based on this data?"

4 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Pirates! by crayz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just wait until the pharm companies find out you illegaly transferred H5N1 IP to your system, and then made *billions* of copies of it. Your doctor will get a strongly-worded takedown notice, that's for sure

  2. Alternate first sentence by arkham6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Instead of "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake.", you could easily say "American Drug company decided to play the IP game, with Indonesia's health at stake."

    I'd be pissed too if i was indonesia.

    1. Re:Alternate first sentence by Rufty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indonesia does the grunt-work of collecting the samples, for free. The drug companies, Baxter et al., charge for the "IP" of the drugs made based from these samples. Not just the drugs, the IP that Indonesia helped gather. At the very least this warrents some share of the IP, say, gratis licences to manufacture the drugs so researched.

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      Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
  3. Compare and contrast by jb.hl.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the summary:

    They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines.

    And the Shah of Iran in 1973, just before the oil crisis:

    "Of course [the world price of oil] is going to rise," the Shah told the New York Times in 1973. "Certainly! And how...; You [Western nations] increased the price of wheat you sell us by 300%, and the same for sugar and cement...; You buy our crude oil and sell it back to us, redefined as petrochemicals, at a hundred times the price you've paid to us...; It's only fair that, from now on, you should pay more for oil. Let's say ten times more."

    No real point. Just found the similarities interesting.

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