Public Health and Intellectual Property Rights

Abstract

The recognition and enforcement of patents in developing countries has raised considerable controversy, particularly in relation to the implications of patents for access to drugs. Questions have arisen, among other issues, on the role of the public sector in discovering new drugs, the strategic use by the pharmaceutical industry of patents to protect not only new drugs, but also to block or delay competition. The difficulties that some developing countries have faced to use the flexibilities allowed by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (the TRIPS Agreement), such as parallel imports and compulsory licenses, have also highlighted the imbalances created by the extension of patent protection to developing countries under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.