The DR1 Daily News misinterpreted comments from Federico Cuello, on the American Chamber of Commerce position on the Intellectual Property Bill in a brief published yesterday (see ww.dr1.com/daily/news042400.shtml). The misinterpreted comment by Federico Cuello, the permanent representative of the Dominican Republic mission to the UN and the WTO in Geneva, Switzerland was the following where he recommends AmCham "please take the time to examine the track record of the U.S. in terms of provision of compulsory licenses and its intimate relationship with antitrust enforcement; please make use of your extensive network of American Chambers of Commerce all over the world (particularly in countries such as the United Kingdom or New Zealand) in order to examine the ways the TRIPS agreement has been implemented all over the world, especially in developed countries; examine the jurisprudence related to compulsory licensing. Then go on to evaluate if any of these cases have ever been brought to the DSB of the WTO for a violation of art. 31 of the TRIPS agreement."The DR1 Daily News had misinterpreted the quote as the UK and New Zealand had already won similar disputes versus US pharmaceutical companies. Cuello clarifies that what he has said is that there have not been cases where the controversies have been resolved against the UK or New Zealand despite having adopted dispositions regarding compulsory licensing.
