BRAZIL
Drug companies and laboratories in the country will no longer be able to enjoy the freedom to pirate patente@ products. The government has finally adopted a new patent law that brings foods and pharmaceuticals under the cover of intellectual property rights. The law will expectedly bury the widespread practice of Brazilian laboratories copy patenting drugs and selling them freely in Brazil, which is the world's sixth largest market for pharmaceuticals. It will encourage foreign investment and develop a domestic drug industry. But the law has its critics, who say that it will only help the multinational companies to corner most of the commercially useful research, while the local companies would suffer due to lack of capacity. The law will also end Brazil's strained relations with the us over patent rights. "We see it as a model for the rest of Latin -America and the world," said a member of the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers of America.
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