US yields on patent data as dairy details vex TPP trade talks

Washington

THE United States on Thursday abandoned its longstanding position on the confidentiality of some patent data as officials immersed themselves in the minutiae of Asia-Pacific dairy markets in a bid to clinch a landmark trade deal.

A day marked by widespread frustration with the slow pace at which Canada took up talks on opening its dairy sector gave way to grinding, all-night talks on the quotas and tariffs that would be applied to products such as whey protein, cheese and milk powder.

Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb said the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) countries were taking "very tiny steps" to resolve disputes over dairy markets. It was not at all clear that they could close a deal by Saturday, the scheduled end to talks in Hawaii. "Things are still going very slowly on that front," Mr Robb told reporters.

Officials from the 12 countries of the TPP, as the proposed pact is known, commenced the final, nocturnal stretch of negotiations with the result still in doubt. They started the week cautiously hoping to reach an agreement in principle, a goal that may yet require another phase of talks.

Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari expressed the hope that another high-level meeting of all 12 wouldn't be necessary.

"I would like to solve difficult issues rapidly and discuss to make this the last ministers meeting," Mr Amari told reporters shortly before entering a plenary meeting with all 12 ministers.

With the closed-door talks in their third day at a hotel on the island of Maui, telltale signs appeared of a complicated, highly politicised negotiation among countries spread across a dozen time zones.

An Australian aide scurried through the hotel lobby, his arms stacked with eight cups of coffee from the Starbucks outlet that is now a meeting point for industry lobbyists and health advocates. US Trade Representative Michael Froman, occupied with in-person cajoling and phone calls, appeared briefly outside the main conference area, having shed the negotiator's typical suit for a casual shirt and slacks.

The US, isolated from virtually every other TPP country, bent on its initial demands regarding data lockups for a newer type of drug known as biologics.

At issue is the ability of pharmaceutical companies to keep confidential the clinical data they use to win regulatory approval. The 12-year lockup in the US raises the value of patents, but is longer than the eight years in Japan or five in Australia.

Ministers discussed numbers ranging between those two at their plenary, according to two people briefed on the talks who requested anonymity because the talks were ongoing.

A compromise is "cooking in the oven", Peruvian Trade Minister Magali Silva told reporters.

The move could weigh on drug giants like Pfizer Inc and Amgen Inc, for which the new therapies are a lucrative source of revenue. It may also spark a backlash from congressional Republicans who have pressed for a TPP that enshrines the 12-year rule.

TPP countries agreed to submit their final offers on dairy trade on Thursday so that negotiators would have time to secure an agreement by early afternoon on Saturday, according to two people briefed on the talks.

Interlocking demands in the dairy sector have slowed the talks, according to the people, who requested anonymity because they're ongoing. The US has waited for Canada before offering its own concessions to Australia and New Zealand - a move that would lend credibility to pressure on Japan to also ease dairy imports.

Mr Robb appealed to the US to break the deadlock by sketching out a better offer, arguing that a more competitive US dairy industry had more to gain than lose from a deal.

"I think the US is particularly well placed because of the transformation, in many respects, of their dairy industry over the past decade," he said. Bloomberg