Regulating Patent Offices: Countering Pharmaceutical Hegemon

14 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2010

See all articles by Peter Drahos

Peter Drahos

Australian National University (ANU) - Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS); Queen Mary University of London, School of Law; School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet)

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

The grant of a patent is not a reward. Rather it is an opportunity for the patent owner to pursue profits using the patent monopoly to exclude competition. Profit-maximising patent owners focus their monopoly powers on markets in which profits are the greatest. In the case of patents over medical products this leads to well known problems of access to medicines for poor people. The costs and abuses of the patent system in the pharmaceutical sector have been persistent and known for a long time, as John Braithwaite’s magisterial 1984 study, Corporate Crime in the Pharmaceutical Industry vividly illustrates. The failure to do anything substantial about these costs and abuses is a function of the power of pharmaceutical transnational corporations (TNCs) and US and EU hegemony over standard-setting in the international patent framework.

Suggested Citation

Drahos, Peter and Drahos, Peter, Regulating Patent Offices: Countering Pharmaceutical Hegemon (2008). SCRIPT-ed, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1578217

Peter Drahos (Contact Author)

Australian National University (ANU) - Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) ( email )

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia

Queen Mary University of London, School of Law

67-69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London, WC2A 3JB
United Kingdom

School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet) ( email )

Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
97
Abstract Views
587
Rank
489,322
PlumX Metrics