Over the past decade, government trade and finance ministries have increasingly turned toward negotiating bilateral and regional trading arrangements, and away from negotiations in multilateral forums like the WTO. There are several reasons for this shift, including changes in the global...

This special issue on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) is introduced with a perspective that focuses on the urgency of narrowing the gap in living standards between the rich nations and the poor. The 1997/98 world economic crisis highlights the question of whether...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused Governments to contemplate measures to override patents and other intellectual property rights (IPRs) in order to facilitate production and distribution of vaccines, treatments, diagnostics and medical devices. This paper discusses whether the COVID-19 pandemic...

UNDP first drew attention to the utility of competition law in health care as a tool to facilitate and promote access to health technologies in 2014. It published ‘Using Competition Law to Promote Access to Health Technologies: A guidebook for low- and middle-income countries’ (the...

This chapter reflects on the evolution of competition law jurisprudence regarding the excessive pricing of pharmaceutical products, and suggests areas where improvements might be considered. This includes, first, establishing per se rules regarding pricing increases that might be considered...

Prosecution of pharmaceutical companies for excessive pricing of products under competition law is now a reality. As recently as a decade ago, such prosecutions were virtually nonexistent. That situation has changed dramatically as competition authorities in Europe and South Africa have pursued...

Tracing back to the Venetian patent law of the 1400s the motivation underlying the grant of the patent was to encourage inventorship and contribution to society. Today patents have become a financial commodity treated much as any other asset of a business. Despite the evolution of the social...

Annual worldwide spending on medicines is anticipated to exceed $1.2 trillion by 2016. Developing countries, and particularly so-called emerging markets, will account for a substantial portion of the growth in spending on medicines. A good part of global market demand will be satisfied by...

The implementation of patent law in the emerging market countries is having an impact on the international patent system. First, it is apparent that the principal emerging market economies are not strictly adhering to the patent regimen of the USA, Europe and Japan, but are instead adapting...