Patent Games in the Global South: Pharmaceutical Patent Law-Making in Brazil, India and Nigeria

Abstract

Unlike the products or processes protected, pharmaceutical patents are neither derived from biological nor physical sciences. Patents, like other intellectual property rights (IPRs), are constructed through negotiations between state and interested non-state actors and conditioned by a confluence of legal, historical, political, social, and economic factors. Although patent laws are designed and introduced at the national levels, international agreements alongside bilateral and regional agreements shape the contours of national patent laws. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) occupies the centre of the international patent architecture. TRIPS, presented as Annex 1C of the Agreement Establishing the WTO, was one of the central outcomes of the challenging and controversial Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (1986–93). Section 5, Articles 27–34 of TRIPS, establishes legally binding minimum patent standards for all WTO members. Although Articles 7 and 8 of TRIPS provides for WTO members to implement these minimum patent standards in ways that promote the socio-economic welfare, public health, and public interest, there are variations in national IPR laws.