EVALUATING FLEXIBILITY technology, for all applicants, and, excepting antitrust violations or other misuse, without regard to the patent holder's use of those rights. Countries may choose to deviate from this uniformity and thereby tailor the law to particular circumstances. Since the Paris Convention in the late nineteenth century, the first major international treaty to attempt a degree of harmonization of patent rights, the pendulum has been swinging toward greater harmonization among countries, and thus necessarily toward greater uniformity within countries. Harmonization efforts have reduced the flexibility of countries to enact tailoring measures. The strong prescriptions of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (" TRIPS") and its enforcement mechanism2 may be indications that the international community is nearing the apex of this swing. Some further efforts at harmonization have moved to the formation of new arrangements, such as regional trade agreements and enforcement treaties. At the same time, developing and" least developed" countries, which have consistently been asked to increase the strength of patent rights and infringement remedies, are providing a counter-force. India has been at the forefront of this resistance-both during negotiations of TRIPS and through its expansive interpretation of flexibilities allowed by the agreement. Thus, India's passage and interpretation of laws excluding certain types of chemicals from patentability and allowing for compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical products serve as examples of tailoring measures (or flexibilities) that reject a uniformly applicable patent law and thereby undermine global harmonization.

India has come under criticism for its aggressive use of flexibilities but it is by no means alone in its attempts to tailor patent laws to fit its needs. The United States-a stalwart negotiator of global patent law harmonization-employs tailoring measures as well.'The Drug Price