“Loose patent processes at the African end allow large areas of Africa to be covered with minimal work; treaty shopping allows multinationals a simple way to find good ways to tap into those processes.”

It is now time to draw conclusions about the Plumpy’Nut/Nutriset case (see web page).

The ethical aspects of the case are mind-boggling  (see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and perhaps unsolvable (see Part 4). The technical aspects of the case are also complex (see Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7). From all this information, can be draw any conclusions about the problems that IPR might cause for humanitarian efforts?

Plumpy’Nut is a useful test case to use because of its technical simplicity: it is a single patent owned by a single company, covering a single product (though very broadly). There are two key problems. Problem one refers to the details of how Nutriset was able to get the patent granted so easily; problem two refers to how the treaty-shopping system is weighted against poor countries.

Continue reading Plumpy’Nut Part 8: Final thoughts →