Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
In this Comment, the author traces the relevant legislative history pertaining to compulsory licensing of patented pharmaceuticals from the TRIPS Agreement of 1994 to the 2003 waiver to, and later proposed amendment of, article 31, which enables poor countries to obtain needed medicines from other countries that possess manufacturing capacity. The Comment then evaluates recent, controversial uses of the relevant legislative machinery as viewed from different critical perspectives. The Comment shows how developing countries seeking access to esential medicines can collaborate in ways that would avoid undermining incentives to innovation and other social costs attributed to compulsory licensing. It ends by defending the legality of recent measures taken to promote public health in developing countries, and by reminding developed countries that unilateral retaliation against such measures is demonstrably illegal under WTO foundational law and jurisprudence.
Citation
Jerome H. Reichman, Compulsory Licensing of Patented Pharmaceutical Inventions: Evaluating the Options, 37 Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 247-263 (2009)
Library of Congress Subject Headings
Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (1994), Compulsory licensing of patents, Patent medicines, Inventions, Drugs--Patents
Included in
Food and Drug Law Commons, Intellectual Property Law Commons, International Law Commons, Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmaceutical Economics Commons
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/faculty_scholarship/2126