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...

The optimal approach to creating and maintaining an equitable balance in the international IPRs system will likely involve a combination of approaches. The goal of the international IPRs system should be to promote innovation, while protecting against the continuation and exacerbation of a stark...

This chapter addresses the interface between health and intellectual property (IP). The chapter provides an introduction to the forms of IP principally as they relate to health products, and describes the international legal framework in which IP is situated. It addresses the ways in which IP...

The paper describes the legal and regulatory mechanism in the United States pursuant to which generic versions of patented medicines may be approved for marketing by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The paper makes two basic points: (1) the system works reasonably well for the United...

The WTO has just finished two and one half years of negotiations on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health, with an additional tranche of negotiations scheduled to commence soon. These negotiations have been extraordinarily instructive on the subject of trade diplomacy and the means by which ends...