IV 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 525 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States 
should reaffirm the commitments of the United States to the 2001 
Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health and 
to pursuing trade policies that promote access to affordable medicines. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 28, 2007 
Mr. ALLEN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Ways and Means 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the United States should reaffirm the commitments of 
the United States to the 2001 Doha Declaration on 
the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health and to pur-
suing trade policies that promote access to affordable 
medicines. 
Whereas the World Trade Organization (WTO) administers 
and enforces the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of 
Intellectual Property Rights (in this preamble referred to 
as ‘‘the TRIPS Agreement’’) to safeguard access to es-
sential drugs; 
Whereas, in 1999, the World Health Assembly, by consensus 
including the United States, adopted Resolution 52.19 on 
the World Health Organization’s Revised Drug Strategy, 
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which expressed concern ‘‘about the situation in which 
one third of the world’s population has no guaranteed ac-
cess to essential drugs, [and] in which new world trade 
agreements may have a negative impact on local manu-
facturing capacity and the access to and prices of phar-
maceuticals in developing countries,’’ and urged member 
states to ‘‘ensure that public health rather than commer-
cial interests have primacy in pharmaceutical and health 
policies and to review their options under’’ the TRIPS 
Agreement; 
Whereas, in 2001, the member states of the WTO, by con-
sensus including the United States, adopted the Doha 
Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, 
in which member states agreed that ‘‘intellectual property 
protection is important for the development of new medi-
cines’’, but also expressed ‘‘concerns about its effects on 
prices’’; 
Whereas the Doha Declaration further states that the TRIPS 
Agreement ‘‘can and should be interpreted and imple-
mented in a manner supportive of WTO Members’ right 
to protect public health and, in particular, to promote ac-
cess to medicines for all’’; 
Whereas Article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement allows each 
member state the flexibility to issue compulsory licenses 
which permit the use of the subject matter of a patent, 
and gives member states broad latitude for such use; 
Whereas the World Health Organization’s 2006 Report of the 
Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation 
and Public Health emphasized the need for innovation in 
medical technologies and access to such innovation, and 
the report also— 
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(1) states that the Doha Declaration clarifies the 
right of governments to use compulsory licensing as a 
means of resolving tensions that may arise between pub-
lic health and the protection of intellectual property 
rights, and to determine the grounds for using compul-
sory licensing; 
(2) recommends that developing countries provide 
for the use of compulsory licensing provisions in legisla-
tion as one means to facilitate access to affordable medi-
cines through import or local production; 
(3) recommends that bilateral trade agreements not 
seek to impose obligations to protect intellectual property 
rights that are greater than those required under the 
TRIPS Agreement, because such obligations could poten-
tially reduce access to medicines in developing countries; 
and 
(4) recommends that developing countries should not 
impose restrictions for the use of, or reliance on, data 
from pharmaceutical development tests in ways that 
would exclude fair competition or impede the use of flexi-
bilities built into the TRIPS Agreement, unless such a 
restriction is required for public health reasons; 
Whereas the Governments of Thailand and Brazil have issued 
compulsory licenses to gain access to less expensive 
versions of second-generation anti-retroviral drugs in 
order to treat a much larger number of HIV/AIDS pa-
tients; 
Whereas the Government of the United States has recognized 
the right of the Government of Thailand to issue compul-
sory licenses in accordance with the laws of Thailand and 
the obligations of the Government of Thailand as a mem-
ber of the WTO; 
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Whereas the 2007 ‘‘Special 301’’ Report, the annual review 
of intellectual property rights protection and enforcement 
conducted by the Office of the United States Trade Rep-
resentative, elevated Thailand to the Priority Watch List, 
pursuant to section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 
U.S.C. 2242), for reasons including ‘‘indications of a 
weakening of respect for patents, as the Thai Govern-
ment announced decisions to issue compulsory licenses 
for several patented pharmaceutical products’’; 
Whereas the 2007 ‘‘Special 301’’ Report singled out Brazil 
for having ‘‘at times indicated consideration of the use of 
compulsory licensing on patented pharmaceutical prod-
ucts’’; 
Whereas the 2007 ‘‘Special 301’’ Report cited 21 developing 
countries for ‘‘inadequate’’ intellectual property rights 
protections on pharmaceutical test data; 
Whereas the United States Trade Representative has nego-
tiated or is seeking to complete several bilateral or re-
gional trade agreements with developing countries that 
contain further obligations to protect intellectual property 
rights, including— 
(1) limitations on the grounds for issuing compul-
sory licenses; 
(2) requirements that countries adopt periods of 
data exclusivity on the scientific evidence used to deter-
mine that drugs are safe and effective, which either 
delays the timely entry of generic drugs into the market 
or forces competitors producing generic drugs to invest in 
costly, time-consuming, and redundant clinical trials, in-
cluding trials that violate ethical rules concerning the 
repetition of experiments on humans; 
(3) extensions of patent terms beyond 20 years; 
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(4) linkage between drug registration and assertions 
of patent protection, so that agencies responsible for the 
regulation of drugs are prohibited from granting mar-
keting approval to a generic version of a medicine if the 
product is covered by a patent; and 
(5) obligations to extend patent protection to minor 
improvements in, or new uses of, older products; and 
Whereas the United States is a user of flexibilities provided 
in the TRIPS Agreement, including the use of involun-
tary authorizations to use the subject matter of patents 
in a number of important sectors, including medical de-
vices, software, and automobile manufacturing: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that the United States should— 
(1) honor the commitments the United States 
made in the 2001 World Trade Organization Doha 
Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public 
Health, which allows member states of the World 
Trade Organization to use ‘‘to the full’’ the flexibili-
ties in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspect of 
Intellectual Property Rights (in this resolution re-
ferred to as ‘‘the TRIPS Agreement’’) ‘‘to protect 
public health and, in particular, to promote access to 
medicines for all,’’ including the issuance of compul-
sory licenses on grounds determined by member 
states; 
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(2) not place countries on the ‘‘Special 301’’ 
Priority Watch List under section 182 of the Trade 
Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. 2242) for exercising the 
flexibilities on public health provided for in the 
TRIPS Agreement, such as issuing compulsory li-
censes to obtain access to generic medicines in ac-
cordance with the Doha Declaration; 
(3) not ask trading partners which are devel-
oping countries to adopt measures to protect intel-
lectual property rights that relate to public health in 
excess of protections required in the TRIPS Agree-
ment; and 
(4) support new global norms for promoting 
medical research and development that seek to pro-
vide a sustainable basis for a needs-driven essential 
health agenda. 
Æ 
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