Articles
Plagiarism in Context
alli.fish · Tucson/Irvine/Bangalore (India) (United States) · 18/2/2008 22:47 · 13 votes
Disparities Between Different Acts of Copying Without Attribution
In January 2007 the Switzerland-based multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis filed a lawsuit in the Chennai High Court against the nation of India alleging that the country’s patent law was both unconstitutional and in violation of the TRIPs agreement. This lawsuit transfixed the global medical community, particularly those invested in securing widespread and affordable access to medicine. One of the primary documents that Novartis relied upon in making its case was the publication of an Indian government commission that was headed by renowned scientist and government bureaucrat Dr. R.A. Mashelkar. This commission’s report, known as the Mashelkar Report on Patent Law Issues (“Mashelkar Report”), was released in late 2006. Unfortunately for Novartis, the Mashelkar Report became the subject of public controversy when it was discovered that a major portion of the conclusions had been plagiarised from another study. Ultimately, the discovery of the plagiarism triggered the withdrawal and reconsideration of the Mashelkar Report, an event that dealt a significant blow to the Novartis lawsuit. This article explores the different implications that flow from acts of plagiarism in different contexts. In particular, it argues that the failure of the Mashelkar Commission to reference the original source from which it copied its conclusions verbatim is a significantly more disturbing act than the type of plagiarism committed by Kaavya Viswanathan in her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. For a brief discussion of the Viswanathan’s case please see last month’s article, Comparing Copies.
In early 2005, in an effort to come into compliance with the requirements of the WTO’s TRIPs agreement, the Indian government approved significant amendments to its existing patent law including a provision that recognised and permitted pharmaceutical product patents. Prior to this time India did not have a system for recognising product patents - a situation that permitted drug companies to develop generic equivalents of branded medications. This legal environment when combined with the nation’s sophisticated medical and technological resources led India to become a world leader in the manufacture of quality, affordable generic pharmaceuticals. In order to safeguard India’s generic drug industry and ensure broad public access to affordable healthcare in India the Patents Amendment Act, 2005 did include some safeguards. The primary safeguard at issue in the Novartis lawsuit and of one of the policy questions explored by the Mashelkar Commisssion in their report was contained in Section 3 (d) of the Act which states that “the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance or of the mere use of a known process, machine or apparatus unless such known process results in a new product or employs at least one new reactant,” is not patentable.
Though the original mandate of the Mashelkar Commission has been subject to debate within mainstream Indian media venues the actual report reflects upon the TRIPs compatibility of the 2005 amendments. In particular, the commission finds that it would neither be in India’s national interest nor would it be TRIPs compatible to limit patent protection to pharmaceuticals that are either new chemical entities or involve one or more inventive steps. A conclusion that fits nicely within Novartis’ argument for its patent protection claim for Gleevec (imanitinib mesylate) one of the most effective drugs in treating chronic myeloid leukemia.
Though Novartis had developed a freebase form of imanitinib mesylate in 1993, it has been unsuccessfully attempting to secure patent protection in India for a different form of the same compound over the last ten years. The refusal of the patent claim led to Novartis filing a challenge to the Patent Amendment Act, 2005 in the Madras High Court as mentioned briefly above. Under the recommendations of the Mashelkar Report, the new form of imantinib mesylate would have been eligible for patent protection and for this reason it was included in the plaintiff’s case as support of their claim. The inclusion of the Mashelkar Report into a legal dispute being followed by thousands of interested parties throughout the world brought the document under close scrutiny. As a result of this attention it was quickly discovered that at least 36 lines of the ten page report were plagiarised from two sources. Of these two sources the most controversial one was a report published in late 2005 by Dr. Shamed Basheer while he was a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre. Dr. Basheer’s report was commissioned by the Intellectual Property Institute, a UK charitable organisation, and funded, in part, by Interpat, an association of pharmaceutical companies “committed to the improvement of intellectual property laws around the world." Though Dr. Basheer does not object to the inclusion of his work in the Mashelkar Report, he has gone on the record saying that he would have preferred to be properly cited.
While it is not the purpose of this discussion to dispute the academic integrity or finding of Dr. Basheer, it is significant to note that those who funded and commissioned his work are attached to interest groups with agendas that promote increased patent protections. The use of Dr. Basheer’s findings by the Mashelkar Commission in their report without proper citation is troubling not simply because of some academic ethical code, as has been argued by some. In fact, as a policy paper, I would argue that the Mashelkar Commission was under no obligation to produce a novel or inventive document. Instead, the group was responsible for producing a well-thought out stance on the issue clearly supported by arguments whose assumptions were clearly documented and from which the public could make an educated decision to either support or reject. Instead, by obfuscating the sources, the Mashelkar Commission set itself out to the community as the authority on the issue and attempted to prevent its audience from making its own decisions as to the validity of the data used and conclusions drawn. In contrast, the plagiarism of which Kaavya Viswanathan is accused, while much more pervasive, is much less upsetting. Though her novel purportedly draws several dozen passages from Megan McCafferty’s book documenting the trials of the average American adolescent, Kaavya’s unique perspective on growing up as a child of Indian immigrants offers a significant creative aspect to her story that sets it apart from the other. Given this I would argue that plagiarism cannot be so simply evaluated without placing the act of copying and failure of attribution in context.
In January 2007 the Switzerland-based multinational pharmaceutical company Novartis filed a lawsuit in the Chennai High Court against the nation of India alleging that the country’s patent law was both unconstitutional and in violation of the TRIPs agreement. This lawsuit transfixed the global medical community, particularly those invested in securing widespread and affordable access to medicine. One of the primary documents that Novartis relied upon in making its case was the publication of an Indian government commission that was headed by renowned scientist and government bureaucrat Dr. R.A. Mashelkar. This commission’s report, known as the Mashelkar Report on Patent Law Issues (“Mashelkar Report”), was released in late 2006. Unfortunately for Novartis, the Mashelkar Report became the subject of public controversy when it was discovered that a major portion of the conclusions had been plagiarised from another study. Ultimately, the discovery of the plagiarism triggered the withdrawal and reconsideration of the Mashelkar Report, an event that dealt a significant blow to the Novartis lawsuit. This article explores the different implications that flow from acts of plagiarism in different contexts. In particular, it argues that the failure of the Mashelkar Commission to reference the original source from which it copied its conclusions verbatim is a significantly more disturbing act than the type of plagiarism committed by Kaavya Viswanathan in her novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. For a brief discussion of the Viswanathan’s case please see last month’s article, Comparing Copies.
In early 2005, in an effort to come into compliance with the requirements of the WTO’s TRIPs agreement, the Indian government approved significant amendments to its existing patent law including a provision that recognised and permitted pharmaceutical product patents. Prior to this time India did not have a system for recognising product patents - a situation that permitted drug companies to develop generic equivalents of branded medications. This legal environment when combined with the nation’s sophisticated medical and technological resources led India to become a world leader in the manufacture of quality, affordable generic pharmaceuticals. In order to safeguard India’s generic drug industry and ensure broad public access to affordable healthcare in India the Patents Amendment Act, 2005 did include some safeguards. The primary safeguard at issue in the Novartis lawsuit and of one of the policy questions explored by the Mashelkar Commisssion in their report was contained in Section 3 (d) of the Act which states that “the mere discovery of a new form of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of that substance or the mere discovery of any new property or new use for a known substance or of the mere use of a known process, machine or apparatus unless such known process results in a new product or employs at least one new reactant,” is not patentable.
Though the original mandate of the Mashelkar Commission has been subject to debate within mainstream Indian media venues the actual report reflects upon the TRIPs compatibility of the 2005 amendments. In particular, the commission finds that it would neither be in India’s national interest nor would it be TRIPs compatible to limit patent protection to pharmaceuticals that are either new chemical entities or involve one or more inventive steps. A conclusion that fits nicely within Novartis’ argument for its patent protection claim for Gleevec (imanitinib mesylate) one of the most effective drugs in treating chronic myeloid leukemia.
Though Novartis had developed a freebase form of imanitinib mesylate in 1993, it has been unsuccessfully attempting to secure patent protection in India for a different form of the same compound over the last ten years. The refusal of the patent claim led to Novartis filing a challenge to the Patent Amendment Act, 2005 in the Madras High Court as mentioned briefly above. Under the recommendations of the Mashelkar Report, the new form of imantinib mesylate would have been eligible for patent protection and for this reason it was included in the plaintiff’s case as support of their claim. The inclusion of the Mashelkar Report into a legal dispute being followed by thousands of interested parties throughout the world brought the document under close scrutiny. As a result of this attention it was quickly discovered that at least 36 lines of the ten page report were plagiarised from two sources. Of these two sources the most controversial one was a report published in late 2005 by Dr. Shamed Basheer while he was a doctoral candidate at the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre. Dr. Basheer’s report was commissioned by the Intellectual Property Institute, a UK charitable organisation, and funded, in part, by Interpat, an association of pharmaceutical companies “committed to the improvement of intellectual property laws around the world." Though Dr. Basheer does not object to the inclusion of his work in the Mashelkar Report, he has gone on the record saying that he would have preferred to be properly cited.
While it is not the purpose of this discussion to dispute the academic integrity or finding of Dr. Basheer, it is significant to note that those who funded and commissioned his work are attached to interest groups with agendas that promote increased patent protections. The use of Dr. Basheer’s findings by the Mashelkar Commission in their report without proper citation is troubling not simply because of some academic ethical code, as has been argued by some. In fact, as a policy paper, I would argue that the Mashelkar Commission was under no obligation to produce a novel or inventive document. Instead, the group was responsible for producing a well-thought out stance on the issue clearly supported by arguments whose assumptions were clearly documented and from which the public could make an educated decision to either support or reject. Instead, by obfuscating the sources, the Mashelkar Commission set itself out to the community as the authority on the issue and attempted to prevent its audience from making its own decisions as to the validity of the data used and conclusions drawn. In contrast, the plagiarism of which Kaavya Viswanathan is accused, while much more pervasive, is much less upsetting. Though her novel purportedly draws several dozen passages from Megan McCafferty’s book documenting the trials of the average American adolescent, Kaavya’s unique perspective on growing up as a child of Indian immigrants offers a significant creative aspect to her story that sets it apart from the other. Given this I would argue that plagiarism cannot be so simply evaluated without placing the act of copying and failure of attribution in context.
tags: United States education
extracted from:Creative Commons
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