Letter of the Day | Urgent need for robust patent protection in CARICOM

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Prime Ministers Andrew Holness, Ralph Gonsalves, Mia Mottley and their ministers; Mark Golding of the PNP, Andre Haughton, Phillip Paulwell, Kamina Johnson Smith, Patrick Hylton, Dana Morris-Dixon, and Roosevelt Skerritt, chairman of CARICOM 50, need to answer for this.

The astonishing Sunday Gleaner revelation by historian Jenny Bulstrode makes me want to throw up. For, under Jamaican and various CARICOM country laws, the very same situation can and does take place in plain sight today. Here is how it goes:

Considering that the duration of patent protection in various jurisdictions, including Jamaica and wider CARICOM countries offer is one of the shortest legal patent protection periods worldwide. This raises concerns about whether this disparity is a result of cynicism, cronyism, or a lingering legacy of imperialism, slavery, or colonialism intentionally embedded in our laws to facilitate the expropriation of our people’s intellectual property and stuff the pockets of our commercial IP lawyers.

I am deeply troubled. I believe it is crucial to bring this issue to regional attention. While countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Nigeria, Cuba, Canada, Rwanda, Ethiopia (if a patent is worked), and China provide 20 years of patent protection, our laws only offer our people a mere 14 years. This glaring disparity is detrimental to our progress and stifles innovation in our region.

After 14 years, patented material in the region can be expropriated by simply waltzing into the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office or its CARICOM regional counterparts, viewing a granted 14-year patent, doctoring it minimally, and proceeding to register a patent on one’s local invention in a foreign jurisdiction and enjoy, not just for a further six years, but a further 20 years of legal protection in their own countries. Thievery, by legal means, can even extend that period by manipulating the ‘patent pending’ status of their application.

I question why our chatty-chatty lawyers, parliamentarians, ministers, and academics have not addressed this ruinous anomaly in our legal and economic framework. Are we unknowingly or uncaringly perpetuating the remnants of imperial and colonial oppression and hegemony through our intellectual property legal practices? We have celebrated over 50 years of CARICOM and roughly 60 years of Independence, yet this issue remains unaddressed.

I implore leaders responsible for the welfare and progress of our nations to take immediate, coordinated action. We need an extended duration of patent protection that aligns with international standards. By rectifying this deficiency, we can better foster a climate of innovation, attract investment, and alleviate persistent poverty in our countries.

I am so angry about this that a conflation of the titles of two (despised by me) V.S. Naipaul books spring to mind: The Mimic Men and An Area of Darkness.

DENNIS MINOTT