Activists scored a win in the run-up to the ministerial. The WTO's rules on intellectual property are usually enforced to keep poor people and developing countries from low-cost access to the fruits of corporate labor, like software, pharmaceuticals, and other intellectual property.

The United States has now backed down from plans to push for the elimination of emergency exceptions from the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), Lori Wallach of Public Citizen said Monday at a workshop on the World Trade Organization and health.

The U.S. had wanted to remove two provisions concerning patents from TRIPs, both of which allow for developing countries to buy patented drugs at reduced prices. The first, parallel imports, allows a country to purchase medicines from another country that imports the drug at a lower price, rather than straight from the pharmaceutical company. The second, compulsory licensing, allows a third party to produce a patented drug in cases of emergency, or certain other situations, including patent abuse.

But activists have recently focussed attention on the high cost of AIDS drugs in developing countries, particularly in South Africa. As a result, the United States will not push to eliminate parallel imports and compulsory licensing during the next round of WTO negotiations.

"This is no small victory", Wallach proclaimed, "no small victory at all."

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