July 10, 2018.
On July 10, INTA’s Chief Representative Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, José Luis Londoño; Associate for Latin America and the Caribbean, Agustina Davis, and INTA member Antonio Varas (Porzio Rios García, Chile) attended a session of the Health Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of the Chilean Congress. The goal was to present INTA’s position on the implications of Article 128bis of Bill 9914-11, which initially limited dramatically the size of trademarks on pharmaceutical product packaging. However, it was recently established that a regulation administered by the Ministry of Health will instead be responsible for determining the shape, size, colors, proportion, characteristics, and content of medicine labels.
INTA presented its view regarding the dangers of trademark restrictions and established that this modification is an improvement on the prior wording of the article, as it no longer explicitly limits the use of trademarks or any other intellectual property on packaging, instead leaving it to the Ministry to craft a new regulation. However, the Association stressed that the Ministry of Health must be cautious when using its regulatory powers and avoid reverting to the initial wording of Article 128bis, which would unjustifiably limit the acquired rights of trademark owners to use their trademarks.
Finally, INTA offered to participate and contribute to the construction of an adequate and balanced regulatory framework that considers elements of competitiveness and health as complementary.