To protect intellectual property is fair but it is shortsighted to go as far as deny treatment opportunities to millions of people or to overlook environmental problems in developing countries. It will be dangerous in the long run and absolutely unfair, because  companies will enjoy the profits while  the states will have to pay for the resulting damages.

We should already know by now that privatizing profits and socialize losses works only for a short time and then we will need twice as much money or effort to fix things.

Given that most intellectual property is registered in the name of the wealthy countries, then a strong system for enforcing IPR as WTO is attempting to put in place amounts to a scheme for wealthy countries to levy rents from the whole world. As the costs of research and development are usually recouped within the home country, the remainder is "cream", or clear profit rather than reward for investment.

The best example is of course Microsoft, which vacuums rents from the world because it

was smart enough or lucky enough to buy a monopoly on a sub-standard PC operating system in 1980.

IPR is another field in which the WTO confuses trade with development. IPR is often claimed to be property owned by the companies that generate it, but in reality it is a privilege conferred by governments. Without contract law, copyright law and property law, IPR would not exist. So the WTO should be aiding governments to apply their IPR law to gain the best for their people. In other words, IPR should be administered as a tool to help development by supporting local industries. Let the international corporations look after themselves