Not a Lexis+ subscriber? Try it out for free.
LexisNexis® CLE On-Demand features premium content from partners like American Law Institute Continuing Legal Education and Pozner & Dodd. Choose from a broad listing of topics suited for law firms, corporate legal departments, and government entities. Individual courses and subscriptions available.
By Mirela V. Hristova
Excerpt from Are Intellectual Property Rights Human Rights? Patent Protection and the Right to Health, 93 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc'y 339 (November 2011)
A Burgeoning Conflict
Laurence Heifer has famously observed that - while intellectual property and human rights "were once strangers[,]" and have "[f]or decades . . . developed in virtual isolation from each other[,]" they are now becoming "increasingly intimate bedfellows[,]" as "international standard setting activities have begun to map previously unchartered intersections between intellectual property law on the one hand and human rights law on the other." 1 This interaction escalated after the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of International Property Rights ("TRIPS Agreement") entered into force in 1994, and spurred the proliferation of increasingly stringent intellectual property rules. 2 As a result, states and institutional actors have been facing a variety of dilemmas, which stem from an inability to give full effect to intellectual property rules, and to simultaneously comply with various obligations under international human rights law. 3 For example, strict patents on pharmaceutical products and processes have given rise to widespread concern about the cost of medicines, and the extent to which the poor's access to life-saving care and treatment is restricted. Thus, drug patents create an inexorable tension between the public's right to health and well-being, and exclusivity, which incentivizes the development of drugs in the first place.
Evaluating the burgeoning interaction between intellectual property rights and human rights is to a great extent contingent on whether the former are of purely legal character, or whether they can be classified as human rights themselves. 4 Therefore, this paper first sets out to examine the specific characteristics ...
Lexis.com subscribers can access the full text of Are Intellectual Property Rights Human Rights? Patent Protection and the Right to Health
Non-subscribers can order the full text of Are Intellectual Property Rights Human Rights? Patent Protection and the Right to Health for US $12.50 (+ tax)
....
Lexis.com subscribers can explore/search Patent Law resources on Lexis.com or access any of these Mathew Bender Patent Law publications:
Non-subscribers can purchase Patent Law treatises/resources and Mathew Bender publications from the LexisNexis Bookstore
For more information about LexisNexis products and solutions connect with us through our corporate site.