240. Supporting the statement made by the delegation of Ecuador regarding WIPO's intervention, the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela quoted from a lecture on TRIPS flexibilities which had stated that "almost all the national patent regimes in developing countries were based on the European and American systems. Patent rights in developing countries were often based on colonial laws or on drafts elaborated with technical assistance from WIPO and patent offices from developed countries. Most of the technical assistance provided to developing countries focused more on conformity with the provisions of the laws relating to rights of patent holders than on the implementation of flexibilities within a multilateral framework that protected public health. The inability to access information about optimal practice were another problem that explained the lack of technical knowledge to implement TRIPS flexibilities in national laws. As a result, developing countries were unaware of the measures and successful strategies put in place by other developing countries to overcome problems with access to medicines. Consequently, countries from the same region which encountered similar or identical difficulties, applied different strategies with varying degrees of success. More importantly, while the majority of developed countries offered technical assistance and best practices on how to protect patent rights, no manual or technical assistance had addressed best practices with respect to compulsory licensing and competition law, looking at, for example, the extensive use made of it by the United States to stop the abuse of patent rights and to address other public interests.
