Theory and practice of intellectual property
№ 2 / 2024

ISSN (Print) 2308-0361
ISSN (Online) 2519-2744

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33731/22024.305605

Submitted     2024-03-21
Accepted      2024-03-30
Published      2024-06-04

The evolution of intellectual property policy in the healthcare: consequences of the pandemic and wartime

Oksana Kashyntseva
Ph.D. (Law), Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Intellectual Property Rights and Human Rights in Public Health of the Intellectual Property Scientific Research Institute of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine
Ukraine
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2598-5614

Olha Omelchenko
Ph.D. (Law), researcher at the Department for Research on Intellectual Property Rights and Human Rights in Healthcare of the Intellectual Property Scientific Research Institute of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine
Ukraine
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3265-205X

Abstract
The article studies the trends in the formation of intellectual property policy in the area of healthcare at the level of the World Trade Organization in connection with the global healthcare crisis caused by COVID-19. It analyzes the relevant issues of waiver from IP rights to medicine and pharmacy objects in accordance with the TRIPS Agreement to ensure access to COVID-19 diagnostic and therapeutic products, given the need to guarantee the fundamental human rights to life and health.

The WTO waiver decision of TRIPS on COVID-19 vaccines (the use of a patented subject matter required for the production and supply of COVID-19 vaccines without the consent of the right holder to the extent necessary to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, in accordance with the provisions of Article 31, TRIPS Agreement) has played an unprecedented role in ensuring access to vaccines for people in countries with different levels of development. However, there is a need to extend the WTO decision to cover the COVID-19 diagnostic and therapeutic products. So far, this issue is being under discussion, which agenda is the unequal access of countries with different levels of development to COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has «exposed the confrontation» between the protection of intellectual property rights and ensuring fundamental human rights: the right to life and the right to health.

The relevance of overcoming the barriers created by intellectual property rights in the context of access to medicines for Ukraine has become even more urgent due to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation and the resulting humanitarian crisis in the national healthcare system. That is why it is important for Ukraine to use all available remedies to ensure access to medical treatment. Such remedies are provided for in the TRIPS Agreement, in particular, Article 31 and Article 73.

When deciding on compulsory licensing of intellectual property rights in the area of medicine and pharmacy, it is necessary to proceed from the fundamental principle of law — the principle of humanism, which actually determines the value of a human being and its right to happiness. The authors insist on the inadmissibility of the absolutization of intellectual property rights.

Keywords: intellectual property rights, human rights, access to medicines, EU legislation

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