The International Patent Protection Of Pharmaceutical Products And The Maintenance Of Public Health

Nowadays, with the outbreak and spread of infectious diseases, such as AIDS, SARS and avian flu, public health crisis has become more apparent. And the public health crisis caused by the lack of medicines in developing countries has promoted health issues to be an important and urgent issue under the WTO framework.Public health belongs to the field of human rights, while pharmaceutical patent is one kind of the private rights. On one hand, in today's international community, knowledge and information has become a valuable resource, and the impetus for pharmaceutical patent just comes from the pharmaceutical innovation. Drug production is the source of innovation, and the innovation depends on the initial investment. So only inspirit will be the driving force for the drug innovation. On the other hand, public health is the common interest of all mankind. It is not a profitable undertaking, and should receive the support of governments and attention around the world. Its purpose is to enable as many people as possible to be healthy and make society to be stable. But right now, the two rights conflict more and more intensely. The maintenance of public health will reduce the initiative to research drugs, which runs counter to the patent system. While, complete protection for drugs is bound to cause health crisis in poor countries, which runs counter to the principles of human rights protection of the United Nations. The regulations in the existing TRIPS on how to balance the interests between public health and pharmaceutical patent often meet difficulties to solve the complex cases in reality. In this paper, the author will elaborate on the theory of the public health system and the pharmaceutical patent system, and elicit a summary of the approaches of interest coordination. The author's exposition means to solve two problems. One is to explain the reasons of the conflicts between public health and pharmaceutical patent. The other is to indicate the shortcomings and defects in the regulations of the two systems, and to propose some feasible methods about the coordination.The paper is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the conflicts between the international protection of pharmaceutical patent and the protection of public health. First, the author introduces the concept of public health, and then shows the background under which the obligations of protecting pharmaceutical patent arise. Second, the author sets forth the legitimacy of the pharmaceutical patent protection, and analyzes reasons of the conflicts between pharmaceutical patent protection and the public health. The author believes that the pharmaceutical patent system is essentially a system of incentives for innovation. However, the public who benefit from the drug can not pay an unreasonably high price for drugs. These two rights are valuable in their own background. Creators have rights to protect their intellectual products, while the public have right to share the benefit of the intellectual products.The second part deals with the development of the rules about pharmaceutical patent protection and the public health. Since entering the era after the TRIPS Agreement, the international community is very concerned about the relationship between intellectual property rights and basic human rights. In theory, the protection of intellectual property provides a more secure environment for developing countries to transfer technology. But the reality is the protection of intellectual property rights limit the access for poor people to get medicines.The third part provides a reflection of the conflicts between international pharmaceutical patent protection and the protection of public health. Pharmaceutical patents shoulder the responsibility of balancing the relation of patent system and public interest. Imbalance inevitably leads to conflicts between patentees and the public. This part firstly shows the legitimacy of pharmaceutical patent protection and the resulting conflicts between patentees and the public. Then, the author focuses on the analysis of the conflicts, and provides the methods to solve these questions in light of the relevant provisions under each framework.