Intellectual property
Access to medical technologies: The context
This chapter offers an overview of the main determinants of access related to health systems, intellectual property (IP) and trade policy. Many other very important socio-economic factors determine access to medical technologies – factors such as health financing, the importance of a qualified health care workforce, poverty and cultural issues – and lack of access is rarely due entirely to a single determinant but these are not addressed in this study, as they are not part of the interface between health, IP and trade.
The current R&D landscape
This section reviews the challenges faced by today’s pharmaceutical industry, against the background of its evolution outlined in the previous section.
¿Pueden las cadenas de bloques revolucionar el comercio internacional?
Son muchos los titulares en los que se sostiene que la cadena de bloques puede revolucionar diversas esferas del comercio internacional, desde la financiación del comercio hasta los procedimientos aduaneros y la propiedad intelectual. El carácter transparente, descentralizado e inalterable de la cadena de bloques ha despertado el interés de los agentes privados -y de los Gobiernos- en explorar las posibilidades que ofrece esta tecnología para mejorar la eficiencia de los procesos comerciales, por lo que ya se han realizado multitud de estudios de viabilidad y proyectos piloto utilizando la cadena de bloques en prácticamente todos los ámbitos del comercio internacional.
Guide to transparency under TRIPS
This Appendix provides a practical guide to the transparency mechanisms established under the TRIPS Agreement concerning how countries choose to implement provisions of the Agreement. These mechanisms help the TRIPS Council to monitor the operation of the Agreement and to promote understanding of members’ intellectual property (IP) policies and legal systems. This Appendix focuses only on the practical use of these mechanisms: the relevant chapters of this book should be consulted for their full background and context.
An integrated health, trade and IP approach to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic constitutes an extraordinary global public health crisis. It has created a pressing need for intensified global cooperation. The pandemic has from its outset raised issues at the crossroads of public health policy, trade policy and the framework for and the management of innovation, including those relating to intellectual property (IP) rights.
A Handbook on the WTO TRIPS Agreement
This handbook describes the historical and legal background to the TRIPS Agreement, its role in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its institutional framework, and reviews the following areas: general provisions and basic principles; copyright and related rights; trademarks; geographical indications; patents; industrial designs, layout-designs, undisclosed information and anti-competitive practices; enforcement of intellectual property rights; dispute settlement in the context of the TRIPS Agreement; TRIPS and public health; and current TRIPS issues. It contains a guide to TRIPS notifications by WTO Members and describes how to access and make use of the official documentation relating to the TRIPS Agreement and connected issues. Furthermore, it includes the legal texts of the TRIPS Agreement and the relevant provisions of the WIPO conventions referred to in it, as well as subsequent relevant WTO instruments.
Sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits
A highly significant development in itself, given its central role in preparing for a potential pandemic, the PIP Framework also serves to illustrate many of the points made in earlier sections of this chapter relating to the role of public-sector institutions and networks, capacity-building in medical innovation, sharing of benefits of the fruits of innovation, and dealing with IP in a public health context.
Foreword
As we mark the 20th anniversary of the WTO, it seems appropriate that we should put a spotlight on the TRIPS Agreement which also turns 20 this year. When the TRIPS Agreement came into being in 1995, it introduced substantive and comprehensive disciplines on intellectual property rights (IPRs) into the multilateral trading system.
Medical technologies: the innovation dimension
Chapter II has described the main elements of the policy framework for innovation and access. This chapter considers how this policy framework applies to innovation in medical technologies. It reviews the factors that have spurred innovation in medical technologies in the past, identifies how current models of R&D are evolving, and charts the role of established and new participants in the innovation process, including in the context of neglected diseases, emerging pathogens with pandemic potential and antibacterial treatments. It also covers the role of IP, particularly patents, in the R&D system.
Medical technologies: the access dimension
Chapter III explained the role of intellectual property (IP) and other policy measures in health innovation; this chapter provides a detailed description of the access dimension and the concepts, laws and policies underlying it, as well as data on availability and access to health technologies and methodological approaches to their measurement. It also offers an overview of the main determinants of access related to health systems, IP and trade policy.
Dispute prevention and settlement
This chapter provides an overview of the TRIPS Agreement. It first explains the historical and legal background of the Agreement and its place in the World Trade Organization (WTO). It then turns to the general provisions and basic principles, as well as other provisions and institutional arrangements, that apply to all the categories of intellectual property rights (IPRs) covered by TRIPS. Chapters II to VII then discuss each of these categories in more detail.
Negotiating for Argentina
To prepare a chapter that presents the experiences of a negotiator of the TRIPS Agreement as close as possible to reality is not an easy task. This is because the Agreement is complex as it covers many subjects related to IP and is made up of a set of rules with varied degrees of specificity and detail. Approaching this task 25 years after the negotiations has introduced complications and involuntary distortions that have made this task even more difficult.