Senior diplomats at Israel’s Embassy in Washington have expressed disappointment at the Bush administration’s decision to keep Israel on the Priority Watch List of countries that do not honor intellectual property rights. The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) included Israel in its Priority Watch List in its report for 1006, published on Friday.
“We’re disappointed by the decision,” Israel Embassy in Washington DC Minister for Economic Affairs Ron Dermer told “Globes”. “By every objective criteria, Israel shouldn’t be included in this list. We hope that in future, the administration use the same criteria to judge all countries.”
Dermer added, “Israel considers its continued inclusion in the priority watch list as discriminatory. Many countries, whose standards for protecting intellectual property rights are lower than Israel’s are included in the ‘Watch List’, or are not included in any blacklist at all. This is gross discrimination that Israel will demand should be stopped.”
Senior diplomats at the Embassy told “Globes” that Israel’s concentrated effort in recent weeks helped avoid Israel being classified in a more severe list. The main dispute between Israel and the US concerned the protection Israel ostensibly gives generic drug maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA) at the expense of ethical US pharmaceutical companies.
As the USTR was formulating its report for 2006, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a lobbying group, intensified its struggle against Israel and Israeli pharmaceutical companies. In a document sent to the USTR, PhRMA called on the US administration to classify Israel in its most severe category, the “Priority Foreign Country” list, which included only one country in 2005 - Ukraine. PhRMA also sought to prevent Israel’s membership in the OECD.
In its section on Israel in this year’s Special 301 Report, the USTR says Israel will remain on the Priority Watch List in 2006. In March 2005, Israel passed legislation that weakened protection against unfair commercial use of undisclosed test and other data submitted by pharmaceutical companies seeking marketing approval for their products, despite extensive efforts between the US government and the Israeli government to bridge differences on this issue. Intensifying concerns of the US, the Israeli government passed legislation in December 2005 that significantly reduced the term of pharmaceutical patent extension granted to compensate for delays in obtaining regulatory approval of a drug. The US is also monitoring the status of copyright legislation that would weaken protections for US rights holders of sound recordings; the United States urges Israel to provide national treatment for US rights holders in accordance with its international obligations, including those under the 1950 US-Israel Bilateral Copyright Agreement. In addition, the US continues to urge Israel to strengthen its data protection regime in order to promote increased bilateral trade and investment in the field of pharmaceuticals and other knowledge-based sectors.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on April 30, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006