Compulsory Licenses as means to Access Patented Platform Technologies in TB and Malaria

Abstract

Patents are issued to protect inventions and innovations and to serve as incentive for more such activity and as consideration for disseminating the invention/innovation to the wider public. This is expected to lead to larger quantity of the product/service which the patent contains so that the availability would be more and wide spread. It would also encourage competition. Hence the main purpose of issue of patent is encouraging dissemination of knowledge and wider use. If it really happens in the field it is very good. But does it really happen? The situation in the field at times is to exclude than include more people as users of knowledge embedded in a patent. This can happen by broad patents, refusal to license the patent etc. This can lead to monopolies, high prices, slow or no progress on follow-on research, reduced number of new products in the market etc. Ultimately in the case of biomedical research it can lead to reduced access to health care products which are vital. In this area especially after the advent of biotechnology there is a unusual increase in patenting activity by the academia and industry which includes upstream patenting which is the main concern of this study.