This article surveys the empirical literature on how patents affect access to drugs in developing countries. In the short run, higher prices and lower access rates are very likely, notably for those countries that benefited from a competitive supply before the TRIPS agreement came into force....

This article uses a two-step technological race model to evaluate the optimal protection of new research instruments, i.e., inventions that are not directly associated to commercial profits but that facilitate further technological progress. We show that paradoxically, granting the patentee an...