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Correa, Carlos M. --- "Data Exclusivity for Pharmaceuticals: TRIPS Standards and Industry’s Demands in Free Trade Agreements" [2010] ELECD 462; 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 21

Section Title: Data Exclusivity for Pharmaceuticals: TRIPS Standards and Industry’s Demands in Free Trade Agreements

Author(s): Correa, Carlos M.

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

21 Data exclusivity for pharmaceuticals:
TRIPS standards and industry's demands
in free trade agreements1
Carlos M. Correa


Introduction
In his paper `Knowledge as a Global Public Good', Stiglitz recalls
Jefferson's statement: `He who receives an idea from me, receives instruc-
tion himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me' as an accurate and early mirror of the
modern concept of public good (1999: 1).
Economists argue that knowledge can be categorized as a public good
because it has the two basic and fundamental particularities that differen-
tiate public goods from private goods: non-rivalry and non-excludability.
Knowledge is non-rivalrous since it can be enjoyed by many people at the
same time with no additional cost; and knowledge is also non-excludable
because its enjoyment by one person does not exclude others from enjoy-
ing it too. As an example, once a particular scientific theory is created
and divulged, it can be learned by many at a zero marginal cost and its
`consumption' does not mean the impossibility of another enjoying that
knowledge as well.
In the last twenty years, however, an expansive wave of protectionism
has dramatically changed the balance between public and private interests
concerning knowledge. While initiated in developed countries, the protec-
tionist wave has extended to developing countries through coercion (via
mechanisms such as the Special Section 301 of the US Trade Act), multi-
lateral agreements (notably the WTO TRIPS Agreement) and free trade
...