Did the Brazilian govt write off the $10M loan they gave Unitron?
It's a stark reminder that companies' success and failure depend a LOT on the govt's policies. One interesting example is India where many medicines have been forced out of IP restrictions, giving rise to a big generic drug manufacturing business. I wonder what will happen to these businesses (many are publicly trading companies) if the patents start getting enforced because of some pressure form US/EU.
About the loan: who knows?! It was the 80's and Brazil was under a crazy military dictatorship imposing lots of economics barriers like the one described in the article. I could bet some money they did it in the shadows and Unitron happily accepted it but I guess it will be impossible to know for sure. What everyone agrees with in Brazil is that those restrictions did more harm than anything else to the country's economy and its technological progress.
By the way, Brazil has a 15-year-old (huge!) generic drug manufacturing market so to me it's clear the US has lost this particular battle, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Brazil#Drug_patent... for more info about it. This fight on drug patents was supported by the UN and other emerging countries, like India.
It's a stark reminder that companies' success and failure depend a LOT on the govt's policies. One interesting example is India where many medicines have been forced out of IP restrictions, giving rise to a big generic drug manufacturing business. I wonder what will happen to these businesses (many are publicly trading companies) if the patents start getting enforced because of some pressure form US/EU.