Vandana Shiva

Due to the inherent conflict between private and public interest, patent laws are strong for protecting the private interest are thus week for protecting the public interest. However, there is no 'strong' or 'weak' patent law in an absolute sense, Strengths and weaknesses are basically relative to the interest being protected. The one-sided reference to 'strong systems' in the debate on IPRs in GATT has an underlying, tacit assumption that only corporate rights count.