ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the national intellectual property (IP) laws of five EAC countries to better understand the nature, scope, and depth of their patent laws with a particular focus on their utilisation of TRIPS flexibilities to facilitate pharmaceutical access. The selected countries – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi – represent a mix of both major and modest economies. While the current literature contains widespread assertions on the impact and effect of TRIPS on access to medicines in these countries, this chapter finds that the countries lack explicit and workable provisions implementing key TRIPS flexibilities. Hence, available TRIPS flexibilities have not been well utilised and it is often the complicated and unworkable domestic framework – rather than TRIPS – which becomes the stumbling block to pharmaceutical access. This chapter stresses the need for EAC partner states to undertake a systemic review of their pharmaceutical patent systems to ensure they are operating efficiently, as intended and in line with the needs and priorities of the region's population. The crux of this chapter is straightforward: EAC countries must ensure domestic laws maximise flexibilities and avoid enacting measures that impose higher obligations than necessary, which could potentially reduce the potency of the flexibilities. While the chapter is not naïve to suggest that optimal use of TRIPS flexibilities is a panacea to solving all public health-related problems in the EAC, it argues that regional coherence in the use of TRIPS flexibilities could better play a supportive role in the wider effort to improve access to medicines and overall public health.
