The Intellectual Property Council

This is responsible for international rights to patents and copyrights. For example, if a company in one country produces a new medicine, it might be illegal for another country to copy that medicine, and produce it for itself. Instead, that country may be obliged to buy the medicine from the other company, or pay a licence fee for the right to produce the medicine itself.

N.B. Current rules on intellectual property mean that countries must buy expensive drugs for treating HIV and AIDS from commercial companies, rather than make the drugs cheaply for themselves. Many African countries cannot afford to buy the drugs, and as a result many people are dying.