The United States has achieved considerable progress under this initiative. Countries and territories that have issued decrees mandating the use of only authorized software by government ministries include Bolivia, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Lebanon, Macau, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The United States is pleased that these governments have recognized the importance of setting an example in this area and expects that these decrees will be fully implemented. The United States looks forward to the adoption of similar decrees, with effective and transparent procedures that ensure legitimate use of software, by additional governments in the coming year.
Intellectual Property and Health Policy
The Administration is dedicated to addressing the serious health problems, such as HIV/AIDS, afflicting African and other least-developed countries. The United States is firmly of the conviction that intellectual property protection, including for pharmaceutical patents, is critical to the long term viability of a health care system capable of developing new and innovative lifesaving medicines. Intellectual property rights are necessary to encourage rapid innovation, development, and commercialization of effective and safe drug therapies. Financial incentives are needed to develop new medications; no one benefits if research on such products is discouraged.
At the same time, the United States is committed to the principle that international obligations such as the TRIPS Agreement have sufficient flexibility to allow countries, particularly developing and least-developed countries, to address the serious public health problems that they face.
At the WTO Doha Ministerial in November 2001, WTO Ministers issued a separate Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, acknowledging the serious public health problems afflicting Africa and other developing and least-developed countries, especially those resulting from HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other epidemics. Ministers agreed that intellectual property rules contain flexibilities to meet the dual objectives of, on the one hand, meeting the needs of poor countries without the resources to pay for cutting edge pharmaceuticals and, on the other hand, ensuring that the patent rights system continues to promote the development and creation of new lifesaving drugs.
The United States proposed, and all WTO members agreed, that the Doha Declaration should provide an additional ten year transition period (until 2016) for least-developed countries to implement the pharmaceutical-related provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. This extended transition period balances the interests of intellectual property rights holders and the needs of the least-developed countries.
In addition, in paragraph 6 of the Declaration, Ministers recognized that WTO Members with "insufficient or no manufacturing capacities in the pharmaceutical sector" could have difficulty using the compulsory licensing provisions of the TRIPS Agreement and directed the TRIPS Council to find an expeditious solution to this problem. In December 2002, the United States
