Improvement of Chinas pharmaceutical patent system

This chapter analyses the political economy of continuity in Argentina’s minimalist response to the new global order in intellectual property. The choices made in the 1990s facilitated Argentina’s largest drug firms’ adjustment to the eventual introduction of drug patenting. Accumulated resources allowed the local sector to shape the Argentinean patent system in the 2000s, as the focal point of conflict moved from how to introduce pharmaceutical patents to how the patent system functions. Argentina continued to buck external pressures for over-compliance, and the patent office’s procedures for examining pharmaceutical patent applications underwent changes too. Argentina’s local firms worked closely with the Executive to secure these outcomes. The chapter also considers the downside of extensive producer power, and the limitations of Executive agency, by considering the Health Ministry’s inability to reform other aspects of the pharmaceutical market against the wishes of the local sector.

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What’s Good for Us is Good for You

10.1093/oso/9780199593903.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Kenneth C. Shadlen

Keyword(s):

Political Economy ◽

Comparative Analysis ◽

Pharmaceutical Industry ◽

Social Structure ◽

Case Studies ◽

Patent System ◽

The Political ◽

External Pressures ◽

Pharmaceutical Patent ◽

Good For

This chapter analyses the political economy of continuity in Mexico. High levels of patenting and accentuated transnational dominance of the pharmaceutical industry, both functions of the choices of the 1990s, created an environment that was inhospitable to efforts to reform the new pharmaceutical patent system. The chapter examines a set of revisions to the new pharmaceutical patent regime in the 2000s, all of which were resolved to the benefit of patent-holders seeking greater rights of exclusion. The analysis demonstrates that persistent over-compliance was not because of Mexico’s obligations under NAFTA, but rather despite the opportunities for tailoring that were allowed by this agreement. Within-case comparative analysis offered by these case studies provides variation on the preferences of health officials in the Mexican Executive, the interests and strategies of the local pharmaceutical sector, Mexico’s sensitivity to external pressures, yet the outcomes were similar, as a result of Mexico’s changed social structure.

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Oligopolist Speech and the Public Interest in Pharmaceutical Patent Law Reform

Canadian Journal of Law and Society / Revue Canadienne Droit et Société ◽

10.1017/cls.2018.1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 33 (01) ◽

pp. 1-20

Author(s):

Chris Dent ◽

Yvonne Haigh

Keyword(s):

Public Interest ◽

Patent Law ◽

Patent System ◽

Law Reform ◽

Pharmaceutical Companies ◽

Pharmaceutical Patents ◽

The Public ◽

Pharmaceutical Patent ◽

Reform Processes

AbstractUnderstandings of the public interest underpin many law reform processes. The public interest is not a fully definable term and so reform bodies have to engage with a range of articulations of that interest. The negotiation of the different articulations, however, has not been explored empirically before. This article reports on a study of the claims to the public interest in a public Australian inquiry into potential abuses of the patent system by pharmaceutical companies. More specifically, submissions to the Pharmaceutical Patents Review are analysed and the results show “oligopolistic” tensions between competing views of the public interest—and with these views claiming primacy over more technical understandings of the issues. This lack of a single “public interest” allows dominant players to frame the debate to reflect their interests; and the tension between these players means that the debate, and the underlying problem, has not been subject to a resolution.

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