You're gonna wash 'em until they're clean, whiteglove clean.

The decision also highlighted an important fact Despite its severe limitations, the TRIPS agreement does have some (rarely used) safeguards that give developing countries a certain degree of flexibility to limit patent protection. That is why the pharmaceutical industry, the US, and others have pushed since its inception for a wider and stronger set of standards through add on agreements.

Many of these provisions are absent from international agreements currently in force such as the World Trade Organization s TRIPS accord and from the bilateral free trade agreements that the US itself has negotiated with a host of countries. In other cases, protection periods would rise considerably.

America s intellectual property regime and the regime that the US has helped to foist upon the rest of the world through the TRIPS agreement is unbalanced. We should all hope that, with its decision in the Myriad case, the Supreme Court will contribute to the creation of a more sensible and humane framework.

America s intellectual property regime and the regime that the US has helped to foist upon the rest of the world through the TRIPS agreement is unbalanced. We should all hope that, with its decision in the Myriad case, the Supreme Court will contribute to the creation of a more sensible and humane framework.

The second issue concerns the unbalanced intellectual property provisions (TRIPs) of the Uruguay Round of trade talks, dictated by America's pharmaceutical and entertainment industries. These provisions restricted countries from making generic imitations of drugs, making many critically important medicines unaffordable in developing countries.

Much of this globally valuable capacity was built under a regime of weak in fact, non existent protection for pharmaceutical patents. But India is now bound by the World Trade Organization s TRIPS agreement, and has revised its patent laws accordingly, causing widespread anxiety in the developing world about the implications for global provision of affordable medicines.

India s Supreme Court has shown that it is independent, interprets the law faithfully, and does not easily succumb to global corporate interests. It is now up to the Indian government to use the TRIPS agreement s safeguards to ensure that the country s intellectual property regime advances both innovation and public health.

Spearheaded by worries about AIDS, activists around the world demanded that something be done. Just before last year's trade talks in Cancun, the US made some concessions, so that it was no longer the only holdout.

The WTO s intellectual property agreement, called TRIPS, originally foresaw the extension of flexibilities to the 48 least developed countries, where average annual per capita income is below 800. The original agreement seems remarkably clear the WTO shall extend these flexibilities upon the request of the least developed countries.

Just before last year's trade talks in Cancun, the US made some concessions, so that it was no longer the only holdout. In its bilateral trade agreements, however, the US is demanding what is becoming known as TRIPs plus, which would strengthen intellectual property rights further, to ensure that countries only have the right to produce inexpensive generic drugs during epidemics and other emergencies.