Under compulsory licensing, a government grants someone a license under a patent, e.g.to produce a patented product or process, without the consent of the patent holder. The possibility of a compulsory license is included in the WTO’s TRIPS agreement.
The individual or company seeking to use another’s intellectual property may have to pay the patent holder a fee for the license. This is an exception to the general rule that the patent holder enjoys exclusive rights, which he is free (not) to license to others.
While pressure is building up on TRIPS Council for the suspension of certain obligations under the TRIPS Agreement during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brazilian Senate approved on 29 April 2021 a bill facilitating the compulsory licensing of COVID-19 vaccines’ patents. The bill will be voted by the Brazilian House of Representatives and, if approved, it…
Legal basis The legal basis for compulsory licenses under German Patent Law is under Section 24 of the German Patent Act. The German Patent Act meets the requirements of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and the implementation of the Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions (Directive 98/44/EC). A claim…
A patent owner has the right to exclude others from practicing its hard-earned patent. Typically, this exclusion covers actions such as making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention. In many jurisdictions, the patent owner has a legal obligation to work its invention in exchange for this exclusive monopoly. However, under certain…
In my last post I deciphered several fake news, which spoil the public debate about compulsory licensing, I then mentioned a French bill proposal, introduced by Mr. Ronan Le Gleut in the Senate on April 8, 2021, whose I thought important to translate, so that it can feed the international debate on compulsory licensing following…
At a time when a bill aiming at granting a compulsory license in the interest of public health in case of extreme sanitary emergency has just been filed in the French Senate on April 8, 2021[1], the fake news that spoil the public debate about the compulsory licensing keep on proliferating. These fake news, which…
Regular readers of the Blog may be aware of my particular interest in pharma patents and, more especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, for compulsory licensing (see for instance here). I was therefore very happy (and pride) to participate in a Collective Tribune bringing together renowned specialists in property and patent laws (academics and practitioners), who…
At the beginning of the year, the Russian Government granted the first compulsory license on a series of Big Pharma’s patents. For the first time ever, “public security” clause has been evoked. According to the Decree 3718-r, Pharmasintez JSC, a Russian generic company, has been granted a 1-year compulsory license to use Gilead’s patents protecting…
The Odyssey, which became synonymous for an eventful journey, originally refers to the perilous return of Odysseus to his homeland of Ithaca after the Trojan War. After the year 2020, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 also announces numerous challenges for the world, and patentees will undoubtedly have their lot. Without trying to take the…
In his 1913 essay Totem und Taboo, Freud defined taboo as a prohibition related to what is considered sacred or impure. The famous psychoanalyst insists on the irrationality of the phenomenon. Thus, compulsory licensing, which is often seen as an impure danger, seems to be a kind of taboo for intellectual property specialists. But the…
As many laboratories around the world are making every effort to find a treatment for Covid-19 and more clinical trials are conducted[1], it is worth considering the legal mechanisms that could facilitate the quantitatively and qualitatively sufficient, and financially acceptable, exploitation of patent rights that will prove useful in curbing the epidemic and preventing a…
