Anything you can think of can be 3D printed. But what about intellectual property?

Anything you can think of can be 3D printed. But what about intellectual property?

By Afro Leo   Monday, September 19, 2016   No comments:

SLA 3D Printer used by Rabbit

Whatever object you can think of, as long as it’s not giant-sized, can be 3D printed these days. NASA is sending 3D printers onboard spacecraft, to print spare parts if and when they’re needed. Nike is 3D printing prototypes for bespoke footwear, having partnered with IT company HP, and in the US, the first 3D printed pills have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

 

3D technology is already being used for things like hip and knee replacements. Dental technicians are using them to design highly customised dental implants, bridges, crowns and dentures, and shells for hearing aids can be very accurately moulded to a patient’s ear, thanks to a 3D printer.

 

Advanced 3D printing technologies have become accessible due to the expiration of key patents held by the original pioneers of the 3D printing industry, releasing the monopolistic control over printing processes that have traditionally been confined to the industrial or healthcare fields.

 

Quick to seize the opportunity, 3D printer manufacturers like MakerBot and Ultimaker have paved the way for accessible 3D printing, and prices for these printers range from R37 500 to R84 995. A MakerBot Replicator Z18, which can build an object of up to 12 inches in width and depth, and up to 18 inches in height, is selling on Takealot.com for R133 000.

 

DionWired, meanwhile, is selling a XYZ 3D printer for 9990 ZAR, and is soon bringing out the Da Vinci 1.0 AiO, which can scan and replicate objects up to six inches high, which will retail at 14 990 ZAR.

 

The intellectual property implications, of course, are far reaching. Sized up against the rapid evolution of 3D technology, and its quickly expanding accessibility, IP laws globally are simply inadequate, and there’s a dilemma: How can designs, patents and copyrights be protected, while allowing 3D printers to positively impact society? For example, one of these impacts could be the ability of a rural clinic to 3D print a prosthetic knee for a patient, instead of waiting weeks for it to be manufactured and transported back from a laboratory.

 

Sinal Govender, an associate in the IP practice at Norton Rose Fulbright points out that emergency medical equipment, including syringes and needles, can potentially be 3D printed, which would greatly relieve the scarcity of these resources in outlying areas. “Service delivery could be taken to another level, and the costs of manufacturing and transport could be significantly reduced,” she says.

 

If you’re a designer whose protected products are being flagrantly pirated via a 3D printer, however, it’s another story. And consider the fact that guns can potentially be 3D printed, as well as illegal drugs. Like all technology today, 3D printers can be applied to positive outcomes, as well as  negative ones.

 

This illustrates the imperative to find a balance in the IP law concerning 3D printers, that serves to protect creative ideas and control the reproduction of harmful objects, but doesn’t stifle the enormously beneficial potential of 3D printing in areas like education and medicine, both rights entrenched in the Constitution, says Govender.

 

“The 3D printing world involves all aspects of IP, including copyright, patents, designs, and trademarks, so it’s a complex legal landscape to navigate, and laws and regulations haven’t caught up with this new technology, either in South Africa or elsewhere.  Various industries are currently debating the issue, and we may see each industry submitting their individual concerns so that the legislation can be updated and amended.  The fact remains, all IP rights owners should be taking particular care to ensure that their IP is protected in an environment where it’s increasingly easy to infringe it,”she says.

 

We all know about theft of software off the internet. Well, 3D printing can actually manifest the product or object itself. We are only beginning to see the applications of this technology, thus the law needs to apply itself with equal fervour if creative ideas are to be protected in future, while allowing technology to change the world for the better.

Afro Zee

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More on the case against Compulsory Licensing: AIDS

More on the case against Compulsory Licensing: AIDS

By Darren Olivier   Thursday, August 07, 2008   No comments:

Writing for the New York Post, Thompson Ayodele of ippanigeria.org - a public-policy think tank based in Lagos, again sets out his case against compulsory licensing. This time co-inciding with the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico where 25 000 people are gathered to attend. Thompson's case is "that the focus on patents and the practice of compulsory licensing isn't just a distraction from the real issues: It also threatens the safety of many AIDS patients." In support he cites that:

* In some African countries (notably Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Kenya and Sierra Leone) duties and taxes on medicines drive the costs through the roof.

* Government regulations also add to the price of drugs. It takes the South African government more than three years to grant regulatory approval for medicines already available in developed countries.

* Drug companies already sell their drugs to poor countries at prices well below cost. Just this year, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Pfizer donated $450 million worth of drugs to Burkina Faso; and

* A lack of investment in infrastructure (see earlier post summarizing his views here).

* Citing India as an example - as a result of poor-quality knock-offs that don't have to pass the same safety tests as their brand-name counterparts, drug resistance is on the rise.

He concludes that "if this week's conference is to have an impact on the growing AIDS pandemic, the participants need to get their priorities straight. Improving medical infrastructure and lowering tariffs should be their chief concern - not weakening drug patents."

I would suggest that access to proper drugs is compounded by the significant problem of counterfeit drugs on the continent (see earlier posts here).

For further posts (and comments) on the issue click here, here, here, here, here and here.

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Aspen Pharma and Glaxosmithkline enter licensing deal

Aspen Pharma and Glaxosmithkline enter licensing deal

By Asiimwe Paul   Thursday, July 24, 2008   1 comment:

Iafrica.com news reports that Aspen Pharma of south Africa and GSK have sealed a licensing deal.

According to the report, Aspen , the leading drug giant in Africa will produce finished pharmaceuticals and therapies ready to use as a result of the IP from GSK. The licensed market crucially excludes Sub-Saharan Africa and India but covers other emerging markets. Product development will be carried out by Aspen and Onco Therapies, a company in which it owns 50% shares in a joint venture with Strides Arcolab of India.

From Aspen's Group Chief Executive, the benefits are clear as the agreement will "extend the worldwide reach of the Aspen business benefiting from GSK's excellent strength in branding and marketing." In his words, "GSK will achieve effective distribution for products in many countries which Aspen is presently unable to reach."

Products from this arrangement are expected to hit the market in 2010.

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Are compulsory patent licences the answer?

Are compulsory patent licences the answer?

By Jeremy   Monday, June 30, 2008   No comments:

Writing in Business Daily, Franklin Cudjoe (editor of African Liberty) argues that it is bureaucracy and not drug patents which are the cause of disease in Africa. In discussing the adoption by the World Health Organisation’s governing body, the World Health Assembly (WHA), of a set of public policy recommendations for impoverished governments struggling with disease, he analyses the WHA's call for a more liberal use of compulsory patent licences, enabling governments to produce generic copies of patent-protected drugs on the assumption that patents prevent poor patients from accessing drugs. He then states:

"But patents aren’t pushing up drug prices, bureaucrats are. Consider the huge tariffs put on imported medicines in the developing world, going as high as 30 per cent in some African countries.

What’s more, prices aren’t the reason so many poor patients can’t get healthy. Even if you gave them unlimited to access to top-notch pharmaceuticals, most would still be facing substantial health risks every day.

From drinking water from polluted rivers, reliance on defunct medical equipment to living near open sewage systems.

Compulsory licences would likely exacerbate the problem of substandard pharmaceuticals in Third World drug markets. Locally produced pharmaceuticals often don’t meet basic quality and safety standards".

He cites the example of the research findings of Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM) that (i) of a representative sample of anti-malarial drugs sold in six African nations, almost half the drugs manufactured in Africa failed basic quality tests and (ii) a third of the drugs sold in Africa were single dose malaria treatments, often ineffective and causing the creation of drug-resistant strains of the disease. The irony, he says, is this:

"The WHA is also encouraging Western pharmaceutical firms to increase investment into medicines for diseases unique to the Third World. How do you convince shareholders to invest in R&D when the resulting drug formula can just be stolen by the local government -- with international sanction, no less?"

He concludes that the WHA should encourage poor countries to adopt prudent economic policies that will enable investment in healthcare infrastructure and ultimately encourage citizens to buy reliable health insurance.

My feeling is that it is necessary to distinguish the smaller picture from the larger one. In every individual situation in which a person's health is at risk because a patented product is not available to him, compulsory licensing would remove that barrier and provide relief -- but Franklin Cudjoe is right to say that prudent economic policies are the best solution in the long term since they provide the basis for market forces to enable legitimate medicinal products to be sold and distributed affordably while making it worthwhile for the IP owners to police the integrity of their own products.

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More on the AIDS/Access debate: Pharma Power

More on the AIDS/Access debate: Pharma Power

By Darren Olivier   Friday, May 16, 2008   2 comments:

It seems as if it is patent/drugs month on Afro-IP which has just come across this article, linked on AllAfrica, by Patrick Bond, on a recent extract from William Gumede's book "Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC" published by Zed Books (http://zedbooks.co.uk). Bond states that there is a need to go beyond the individual reasons ("the oft cited peculiarities of the President himself") and look at the structural forces that have informed Mbeki's embattled AIDS policy, such as international and domestic financial markets, pharmaceutical manufacturers and a large reserve army of labour:

"The second structural reason is the residual power of pharmaceutical manufacturers to defend their rights to 'intellectual property', i.e. monopoly patents on life-saving medicines. This pressure did not end in April 2001 when the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association withdrew their notorious lawsuit against the South African Medicines Act of 1997. That Act allows for parallel import or local production, via 'compulsory licences', of generic substitutes for brand-name antiretroviral medicines. Big Pharma's power was felt in the debate over essential drugs for public health emergencies at the November 2001 Doha World Trade Organisation summit, and ever since."

Bond seems to support Ayodele's view that compulsory licensing is ineffective but for different reasons. Readers may recall that Ayodele recently wrote (based mainly on his experiences in Nigeria and reported on Afro-IP here) that the focus on IPRs as the main contributing cause to lack of access to life saving drugs in Africa is mis-directed... "that even if medicine were available for free, as it often is in poor nations, dysfunctional institutions and personnel ensure that the needy can't access it. Despite unprecedented quantities of monetary aid to the ministries of health of many African countries, health systems on the continent have languished." Bond's focus, by contrast, seems to be on the residual power of big pharma to protect their IPRs, despite compulsory licensing provisions aimed at increasing access to drugs.

* Patrick Bond directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. The article is an extract from his book 'Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa'.

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Africa: Failing Infrastructure Renders Compulsory Licensing Pointless

Africa: Failing Infrastructure Renders Compulsory Licensing Pointless

By Darren Olivier   Tuesday, May 06, 2008   1 comment:

Thompson Ayodele writes, in a well compiled piece, that the focus on IPRs as the main contributing cause to lack of access to life saving drugs in Africa is mis-directed... "that even if medicine were available for free, as it often is in poor nations, dysfunctional institutions and personnel ensure that the needy can't access it. Despite unprecedented quantities of monetary aid to the ministries of health of many African countries, health systems on the continent have languished." The article further fuels the complex debate on solutions to this very serious problem in Africa, as reported by Afro-IP here, here, here, here and here.

Thompson cites several reasons why, using Nigeria in most examples:

1. nearly all foreign aid must first pass through health ministries before reaching patients. Money is routinely subverted by health officials for private gain;

2. leakage of drugs from the supply chain due to rewards on the black market; and

3. other forms of corruption including mismanagement of funds at the local level, employee absenteeism, extortion of patients by staff members and the abuse of procurement contracts for hospital supplies.

The article cites failed examples of compulsory licensing in Thailand to further backup his view that "as long as healthcare delivery remains in the hands of dysfunctional governments, the health of the poor in developing nations will never improve. Aid groups and policymakers must instead enlist the help and expertise of the private sector which he believes will reduce corruption and insert much needed competition."

The full article can be found here.

Thompson Ayodele is the Executive Director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis based in Lagos.

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