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Reichman, Jerome H. --- "Compulsory Licensing of Patented Pharmaceutical Inventions: Evaluating the Options" [2010] ELECD 458; in Correa, M. Carlos (ed), "Research Handbook on the Protection of Intellectual Property under WTO Rules" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Protection of Intellectual Property under WTO Rules

Editor(s): Correa, M. Carlos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209047

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: Compulsory Licensing of Patented Pharmaceutical Inventions: Evaluating the Options

Author(s): Reichman, Jerome H.

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

17 Compulsory licensing of patented
pharmaceutical inventions: evaluating the
options
Jerome H. Reichman*


1. How compulsory licensing survived the TRIPS Agreement of 1994
Few topics in international intellectual property law have been as contro-
versial in recent years as the one we are about to examine. In the 1980s
and early 1990s, a Diplomatic Conference attempted to revise the Paris
Convention of 1883, the oldest international convention providing some
protection for patented inventions outside of the domestic laws.1 Those
efforts broke down, largely because developed and developing countries
could not agree on the powers that governments should retain to issue
compulsory licenses or on the grounds for which these powers could be
exercised.2 The failure of this Conference, held under the auspices of
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), persuaded the
technology-exporting countries to link future negotiations concerning
international intellectual property protection to the Multilateral Trade
Negotiations, known as the Uruguay Round, which got under way in
1986.3 The end result was Annex IC of the Agreement Establishing the


* © J.H. Reichman 2009. An earlier version of this article appeared in 37
J. Law, Medicine and Ethics 247 (2009). The author wishes to thank Professor
Kevin Outterson for his invaluable suggestions and insights. He also gratefully
acknowledges the support of the National Human Genome Research Institute and
the Department of Energy under Grant No. 5P50 G003391-02.
1
Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, Mar. 20, 1883,
as revised at Stockholm (1967), 21 UST ...