Cavallo was no expert in intellectual property issues, despite recent international attention the subject had been receiving. He knew, however, that the long-term permanence of Menem's heterodox government depended in large part upon the success of the Bush-Menem summit being planned for New York City. Cavallo quickly offered Hills his assurances that the Argentines would be forthcoming. At the time, the former economic advisor to Argentina's military junta was being advised on the issue by two commerce undersecretaries--Juan Sanchez Arnau and William Otrera, neither of whom were known for their knowledge of or interest in the property rights issue.

Given the knowledge vacuum on intellectual property rights inside the Menem administration, Argentina's major pharmaceutical laboratories began a period of intense lobbying. Alberto Roemmers (Roemmers) and Sebastian Bago (Bago) greased their close ties to both the medical community and Buenos Aires' elite by means of direct subsidies to several journalists. Two other rising stars would join the lobbying enterprise. Alberto Alvarez Saavedra (Gador) added his entrepreneurial skills to the effort. Alvarez Saavedra had grown up in Menem's home province of La Rioja, where his father--an army intelligence informant--ran the province's only casino and founded a newspaper unconditionally supportive of Menem's national ambitions. The second of the starred partnership was Hernan Lopez Bernabo (Microsules-Bernabo), currently chairperson of Centro Industrial de Laboratorios Farmaceuticos Argentinos (CILFA), a person with close ties to President Eduardo Duhalde.

CILFA represents Argentina's domestic pharmaceutical industry, which in the 1990s produced more than two billion dollars annually. CILFA actively lobbies to prevent any foreign intrusion in the local market that could cost its patrons their dominant position in the local market.

Otrera was tapped to be Argentina's chief negotiator to the GATT at a time in which Pablo Challu, an saavy economist belonging to the supposedly free-market Union of the Democratic Center party--a mainstay of Menem's coalition, was named as as Argentina's Commerce Secretary. From there, Challu was later appointed chief executive officer of CILFA. During the talks at GATT, a precursor of the World Trade Organization, the Argentines did not bring up the intellectual property issue, in opposition to Indian or Brazilian positions.

In truth, Cavallo´s promise to Hills marked the start of a frantic strategy developed by CILFA. The organization hired recognized experts on constitutional law to justify peculiar interpretations of Argentine Constitution, which defines as property any work, invention or discovery. CILFA's advertising placements guaranteed a highly visible platform for its views on TV, radio and the print media, particularly so given Argentine journalists' penchant for under-the-table payments. The drug industry also worked feverishly to consolidate and expand its network of friendly politicians, strengthening its relationship with decision-makers and freely distributing "grease payments" among its supporters. Both Eduardo Bauza and Alberto Kohan, who subsequently were in charge of the strategic general-secretary of the presidency post (equivalent to chief of staff ) were effectively brought into the CILFA inner circle. Mirroring Menem's penchant for reconciling the seemingly unreconciliable through so-called cadena de felicidad (happiness chain) payments, CILFA also reached out effectively to parliament. In House of Representatives' Industry Commission, CILFA built a solid relationship with four leaders of diverse factions.

Humberto Roggero was a member of Partido Justicialista (Peronist Party). A former guerrilla leader, he spent many years in prison during the rule of a vicious military junta in the 1970s. Juan Baylac served as a member of the police force during that time and was a leader of the opposition Union Civica Radical (UCR). Federico Zamora belonged to Challu's UCD. Rafael Flores was a parliamentary member of Frepaso -‑a leftwing nationalist party that teamed the old-fashioned UCR in 1999 elections.

Efforts by CILFA to maintain close ties to local politicians even spilled into open bribery. In an article published in a Buenos Aires newspaper, parliamentary deputy Claudio Sebastiani was quoted as saying that $25 million in payments were made in the lower house alone. In addition, several representatives were treated to a expense-paid trip to the US. Included in the junket was a stop at Tiffany's for a free gift for the members' occasional companions, wives, friends and lovers. 

The results were palpable. A decade after Hills demand of Cavallo, legislation supported by four of the foreign minister's successirs—(Guido Di Tella, Adalberto Rodriguez Giavarini and Carlos Ruckauf)--was not passed by Congress until the Marrakesh Treaty became a fait accompli. Nevertheless, the final version of the bill that was passed was provided to friendly legislators by CILFA.

Outside observers say the US ambassadors during those years--Terence Todman and James Cheek--worked the issue clumsily and their attention appeared to be focused on other matters, including business negotiations more favorable to their personal interests. This activity later included direct participation in the boards of several companies that either had been privatized during Menem's term after having obtained "special treatment" from his administration, such as Argentina's national airline and a printing company that also has expanded its activity in the gambling industry. Similar interest was shown by managers of US pharmaceutical laboratories, whose executives' sole mission during their years at the helm of local subsidiaries appeared to be that of producing short-term benefits. These included a shadowy deal between CILFA and Camara Argentina de Especialidades Medicinales (CAEME), CILFA's international counterpart, that enabled both to establish a veritable cartel governing drugs sold to the public health service system, resulting in enormous profits for members of both associations.

CILFA was especially interested in the form public health services were provided. In 1994, after the Marrakesh Agreement was signed and a property rights bill demanded by US Government appeared destined to receive congressional approval, the Argentine Direccion Nacional de Propiedad Intelectual (the equivalent to US Patents and Inventions Office) was transformed into the Instituto Nacional de Propiedad Intelectual (National Institute of Intellectual Property) as CILFA advanced using Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Industrial's (National Institute of Industrial Technology) scope of activity.

Carlos Correa ‑a former official of former President Raul Alfonsin´s administration and a man known for opposing the international standards for the protection of intellectual property rights, was chosen to run the new institute. However, a fortunate early warning given to Cavallo about Correa resulted in his replacement by Norma Felix. A lawyer of the Institute of Industrial Technology, Felix had been proposed by Roggero, who still headed the Industry Commission of House of Representatives and who was closely tied to CILFA.

Felix's tenure at the head of the newly created Institute was to be remember long after she was replaced in 1999, following by an intervention decreed by a new Argentine Government. In her wake came several judicial and administrative investigations. The new appointed overseer of the Institute was Horacio Jaquenoud, an Argentine diplomat who made his career in the commercial section of the Argentine foreign service. Jaquenoud also cooperated with Roggero in several occasions. The short period he acted as interventor of the Institute was also to be remembered: arson reduced to ashes most of the registered rights to exclusive commercialization of pharmaceutical patents and drugs.

Soon after the fire, a reorganization of the Institute was initiated in which a board of directors made up of all governmental agencies with a direct relationship to its work was created. Jaquenoud and Zamora were to chair the new entity. When Fernando De la Rua took over as president, both men were replaced by German Voss, a personal friend of De la Rua's; Mario Trincheri, a good friend of ex-President Raul Alfonsin, and Tomas Medici, who was suggested by Graciela Fernandez Meijide, a Frepaso leader and Minister of Social Action and Public Health.

Medici was shown the door shortly thereafter by a Presidential Decree that reorganized the board of directors, leaving the Institute without representation of the interests of the Ministry of Social Action and Public Health. One direct consequence of this decision was the absolute control of the Institute given to the Ministry of Economy, which was newly sensitized to the needs of the House of Representative and its new opposition leader--Roggero. (Baylac, who was named presidential spokesman, also increased his influence.)

De la Rua served as president for two years of a constitutionally-mandated four-year term. A careening economy and urban riots led to his resignation and the eventual designation of Duhalde, the losing 1999 candidate, as president.

Duhalde's haphazard selection of key aides resulted in Challu being designated as head of the anti-monopoly secretariat, a position that seemed to directly contradict his private sector activism. The appointment was widely criticised in the media and by public opinion. Duhalde was forced to retreat, naming Challu instead as the manager of a social security program that is supposed to benefit more than two million Argentines impoverished by, among other causes, a lack of governmental transparency and rampant corruption.

The INPI, meanwhile, has become a Pandora Box. Irregularities remain commonplace: Felix, Zamora, Jaquenoud, Voss and Trincheri took several trips (Miami, Washington DC, New york) for which there has never been a public accounting either of their results or costs. Superfluous spending on advisers was never curbed, although incomes at the new patents registration office have been lowered from $350 to $50 a month. The rampant spending has jeopardized the printing and distribution of Institute's newsetter-‑the only official public means to communicate intellectual property registration rights. Institute's web site was also left adrift, despite the fact that the personnel working for the Institute has tripled since its creation, due to a nearly 60 percent absenteeism rate. Today the Institute is headed by someone whose defining characteristic appears to be a manifest ignorance of intellectual property rights generally, even CILFA's extravagant version of the same.

Meanwhile confidentiality regulations are observed in the breach. Leaks of information are so rampant that opposition to various patent registration requests have been received by the office even when those requests have not been made public. Complaints about such behavior are met by a familiar argument--since the laws require specific regulations to be enacted, the absence of these means the law should not be observed at all.

In June Voss and Trincheri were required to resign from office, leaving the Institute in shambles. At a lunch given by the Union Industrial Argentina--the industry captains' association once headed by Sebastiani, Carlos Leone, a high-ranking government official promised to appoint to head the Institute two other members of the group headed by Roggero and Challu: Mario Aramburu and Victor Vanoli.

Aramburu and Vanoli were advisors to Roggero in the House of Representatives. Aramburu is also Zamora's personal accountant. Vanoli, a close friend of Jaquenoud's, attended the Third Session of the Permanent Committee on Patent Rights of the OMPI in Geneva as an advisor to Roggero.

Recently a leader of State Workers Union sadly lamented in public that: "It cannot be possible that this mob keeps running the Institute. The embassy should do something." The embassy he was referring to, of course, is the US representation in Buenos Aires.