This is to invite our readers to the third part of the NLU-Delhi Colloquium on Selected IP issues. NLU Delhi will host Prof. Bhaven Sampat, & Prof. Ken Shadlen who will present their scholarly paper on “TRIPS Implementation and Secondary Patent in Brazil and India”, which will be followed by a floor discussion of the paper. Interested readers may attend the event (for free) on 21st November, 2014 (Friday) at 4:00 pm at the NLU-Delhi campus (Room #506). Readers may see other topics covered in the previous colloquiums here and here.
Abstract of the Paper
The paper compares national approaches toward secondary pharmaceutical patents. Because such patents – covering alternative structural forms of existing molecules, formulations and compositions and new uses of existing drugs – can extend periods of exclusivity and delay generic competition, they can raise prices and reduce access to medicines. While countries have enacted policies to address applications for secondary pharmaceutical patents, little is known about what measures countries are putting in place to, how they function, and whether, or their effects. The authors analyze the approaches toward secondary pharmaceutical patents in India and Brazil. The authors also assemble data on pharmaceutical patent applications filed in the two countries, code each application to identify which constitute secondary applications, and examine outcomes for each application in each country. The data indicate that Brazil has a greater tendency to reject applications than India, but in both countries the measures designed to limit secondary patents are having little direct effect. This suggests, on the one hand, that critics of these policies, such as the transnational pharmaceutical sector and foreign governments, may be more worried than they should be. On the other hand, champions of the policies, such as NGOs and international organizations, may have cause for concern that laws on the books are not having a strong impact on patent outcomes in practice.
Bio of Speakers
Ken Shadlen is a Professor in the Department of International Development, at the London School of Economics. Ken works on the comparative and international political economy of development. His main areas of research include the global and cross-national politics of intellectual property (IP) and the politics of trade and economic integration (including North-South trade agreements and the WTO). Ken is particularly interested in the role of IP and knowledge in development, both historically and in the contemporary global economy. To that end he is interested in the implications that the new global IP regime presents for late development, and the various ways that the new global norms and rules for IP are transmitted to the national level and affect national practices. Related to (and derived from) his work on IP, he has particular interests in issues related to the pharmaceutical industries, the production and supply of medicines, and health policies in developing countries.
Bhaven Sampat, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. He also holds a courtesy affiliation with Columbia Law School and the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and has taught in SIPA’s MPA and MIA programs, and in the Sustainable Development PhD program at the Earth Institute. An economist by training, Sampat is centrally interested in issues at the intersection of health policy and innovation policy. His current work examines the causes and consequences of generic firms’ challenges to pharmaceutical patents in the U.S., the impact of pharmaceutical patent laws on innovation and access to medicines in the developing countries, the political economy of the National Institutes of Health, and the returns to publicly funded medical research. Dr. Sampat has also written extensively on the effects of university patenting and the Bayh-Dole Act on academic medicine, and on patent quality issues in the U.S., and continues to be actively involved in policy debates related to these issues. He has published broadly in economics, law, business, health policy, medical and life science journals.
Dr. Sampat received his BA, MA, M.Phil., and PhD in economics from Columbia. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech, where he twice won the “Faculty Member of the Year” teaching award. From 2003 to 2005 he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan.
Together with C. Scott Hemphill, he is currently a recipient of a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research Program to study generic challenges to pharmaceutical patents. He was also awarded a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Investigator Award” to study the political economy of the NIH. His work has also been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Merck Foundation, and the Commonwealth Fund.
About the NLU Delhi Colloquium on Selected Intellectual Property Issues
NLU Delhi Colloquium on Selected Intellectual Property (IP) Issues is a panel/ speakers’ series launched with an aim to generate a nuanced dialogue and to promote free-thinking on emergent issues in IP law, policy, theory and practice. The current IP landscape in India is presenting new challenges on an ever-increasing scale. Hence there is an urgent need to understand this phenomenon and discuss issues surrounding some of the trickiest aspects of IP, including its socio-economic implications. To these ends, NLU-Delhi hosts scholars, practitioners and policy specialists from India and abroad to discuss and share new scholarship, views, ideas and experiences.
