KARACHI - Pakistans ratification of proposed amendment in Article 31 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement would allow the country to create mechanisms to grant compulsory license for production and export of patented pharmaceuticals to countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity. This was stated by Zulfiqar Khan, a leading intellectual property lawyer of pakistanlaw.com (an IP botique law firm), while commenting on the Federal Cabinets recent ratification of proposed amendment in Article 31 of the WTO-TRIPS Agreement. He informed that WTO has inserted Article 31bis to the text of TRIPS Agreement, which aims to allow WTO member countries, like Pakistan, which do not have the capacity to manufacture required drugs, to import them under a compulsory license in case of national emergencies and epidemics like Swine Flu and AIDS. The said Article is added in TRIPs to solve the problem of less developed countries lacking the capacity to manufacture required drugs at the occurrences of serious lethal epidemics, he said and added, the decision had to be made before the end of 2009. Zulfiqar said that pursuant to the provisions of Article 31 of the TRIPS Agreement, WTOs member can authorize any third party, other than the right holder, to manufacture brand-name drugs under compulsory licenses. However, the said Article did not explicitly regulate whether WTOs member lacking the ability to manufacture drugs can obtain these drugs from other WTO members. To solve this issue, WTO passed Article 31bis in 2005 for allowing less developed countries to obtain brand-name drugs from other WTOs members under compulsory licenses to combat epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Zulfiqar Khan informed that the proposed amendment, Article 31bis, is the first instance for WTO to make any amendment to the TRIPS Agreement since the organization was first established. All WTO members are required to ratify the said amendment before Dec 31, 2009. Thus Pakistan is just in time to have paved the way for retification of this developing countries and least developing countries long awaited demand. He hoped that in light of these retifications, the Government will make appropriate changes in drug laws and investment policies to trickle down the benefit to common people in the country.