Pharmaceutical Patent Protection and World Trade Law: The Unresolved Problem of Access to Medicines

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Pharmaceutical Patent Protection and World Trade Law: The Unresolved Problem of Access to Medicines

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Patents, including pharmaceutical patents, enjoy extended protection for twenty years under the TRIPs Agreement. The Agreement has resulted in creating a two-tier system of the World Trade Organisation Member States, and its implementation has seen the price of pharmaceutical products skyrocket, putting essential medicines beyond the reach of the common man. The hardest hit populations come from the developing and least developed countries, that have either a weak health care system or no health care at all, where access to essential and affordable medicines is extremely difficult to achieve.

Pharmaceutical Patent Protection and World Trade Law studies the problems faced by these countries in obtaining access to affordable medicines for their citizens in light of the TRIPS Agreement. It explores the opportunities that are still open for some developing countries to utilise the flexibilities available under the TRIPS Agreement in order to mitigate the damage caused by it. The book also examines the interrelationship between the world governing bodies, and the right to health contained in some of the developing country’s national constitutions.

1. Introduction

PART I Foundation of Intellectual Property Laws, and IP in the Multilateral Trading System Introduction

2. A Jurisprudential Enquiry into the Justification of International IP Rights Protection, with Particular Reference to Pharmaceutical Patents

3. Intellectual Property in the Multilateral Trading System: Forum Shifting, TRIPS Agreement, Doha Declaration and TRIPS Flexibilities

4. Undermining TRIPS Flexibilities: FTAs, Bilateral Trade Agreements, EPAs, IIAs, TRIPS-Plus & Stoppage in Transit

PART II TRIPS & Developing Countries: Implementation, Knowledge Economy and IP Policy Making

5. BRAZIL: Ambitious Missions and an Early Implementation

6. CHINA: The Uneasy Transition

7. INDIA: The Transition from Process to Product Patent

8. SOUTH AFRICA: Against All Odds

9. KENYA: Can Generics Still Reach the Needy?　

PART III TRIPS at What Cost?