The patent law also encourages public disclosure of inventions, at least in part because secret innovations are less likely to promote progress than those disclosed to the public. In this regard, U.S. patent law attenuates the legal effect of innovations that are not properly disclosed to the public. One such provision is codified at 35 U.S.C. § 102(g), which is an important, albeit seldom used...

This document presents an overview of recent changes in the patent regimes of United States, Japan and Europe. It has been prepared as part of the project on IPRs, Innovation and Economic Performance. It will be presented in the conference to take place on 28-29 August in Paris and incorporated into the final report of the project. Delegates are invited to comment on this draft, in particular o...

'Evergreening' is not a formal concept of patent law. It is best understood as a social idea used to refer to the myriad ways in which pharmaceutical patent owners utilise the law and related regulatory processes to extend their high rent-earning intellectual monopoly privileges, particularly over highly profitable (either in total sales volume or price per unit) 'blockbuster' drugs. Thus, whil...

This study assessed the impact of the Thai-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on access to medicines in Thailand. We first interpreted the text of the sixth round of Thai-US negotiations in 2006 on intellectual property rights (IPR). The impact was estimated using a macroeconomic model of the impact of changes in IPR. The estimated impact is based on a comparison between the current IPR situation an...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is an endovascular microbial infection of cardiovascular structures (e.g., native valves, ventricular or atrial endocardium) including endarteritis of the large intrathoracic vessels (e.g., in a patent ductus arteriosus, arteriovenous shunts, coarctation of the aorta) or of intracardiac foreign bodies (e.g., prosthetic valves, pacemaker or ICD leads, surgically creat...

Patent pools for second and third-line Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) should not be delayed as they are instrumental to urgent public health needs in the under-served markets.Nonetheless, multinational originator companies still seem to perceive patent pooling for ARVs as a minefield that would offer the generic competitors lots of deeply exploitable opportunities, to ...

On September 24, 1984, President Reagan signed into law the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984. This law, the first change in United States patent terms since 1861, restores part of the patent life lost during the premarket regulatory process for new pharmaceuticals (and also for medical devices and food additives). A second major provision of the law facilitates the...

Abstract Patent information must, in certain circumstances, be prevented from being made available to the public for reasons of national security. This policy imperative deviates conventional approach under patent law, which emphasises a bargain with society whereby rights are granted return disclosure invention and communication public. How best achieve balance between keeping an secret securi...