"The Price of Innovation": Report Suggests that the Cost of Drug R&D is Inflated

Adrienne Ng is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Donald Light and Rebecca Warburton (hereafter LW), in February 2011, published a paper entitled “Demythologizing the high costs of pharmaceutical research”.  The paper suggests that the US$802 million price tag of pharmaceutical innovation estimated in a 2003 report is inflated.  A more sound estimate would be US$43 […]

Election Drum Beats the Life Out of Access to Medicines Bill

Dan Whalen is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Among the nearly 500 bills that died with the end of the 40th Canadian Parliament last Friday was Bill C-393, Canada’s Act to amend the Patent Act. The bill proposes to modify Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR), itself an amendment to the Patent […]

Big Losses Loom for Big Pharma

Dan Whalen is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. The New York Times reported that many of the major players in the global pharmaceutical industry are set to lose exclusive rights to 10 blockbuster drugs of combined annual sales close to US$50 billion. No mere fluke, this news marks the beginning of an […]

Rejection of Abbott Laboratories’ HIV Drug Patent in India

Dan Whalen is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. The Indian Patent Office recently denied exclusive rights to Abbott Laboratories for a premier HIV-fighting drug – effectively opening up the market to lower-cost generic substitutes. The company’s application was officially contested by four opponents led by the non-governmental organization Initiative for Medicines, Access […]

Global Pharmaceutical Linkage Regulations: A Consortium Framework

Dr. Ron Bouchard is an Associate Professor in the Faculties of Law and Medicine at the University of Manitoba. I am pleased to announce a new collaborative consortium of eleven intellectual property law and health policy scholars, economists, and practicing lawyers in nine countries. The group is called the Consortium Study of Global Pharmaceutical Linkage […]

Patents on Steroids: Professor Dutfield's Lecture on the Evolution of Patent Law in the Life Sciences

Steven Zuccarelli is a J.D. Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School On 28 October 2010, IP Osgoode hosted Professor Graham Dutfield of the University of Leeds School of Law, who discussed research that demonstrates how the development and commercialization of hormones as pharmaceuticals represents an example of how IP policy, scientific developments, and the business […]

Do Rights-Based Perspectives Underlie The Interpretation of Statutes in IP Law?

Steven Zuccarelli is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. Balancing pharmaceutical patent rights with public health needs is a contentious issue that poses enormous challenges to lawmakers.  The conflict between innovators of therapeutics and generic manufacturers is fought from divergent perspectives on the battlefield formed by patent laws.  At stake is the balance […]

Living Separate and Apart is Never Easy: Obviousness and Inventiveness in Pharmaceutical Litigation

Ron A. Bouchard is an Associate Professor in the Faculties of Medicine & Dentistry and Law, University of Alberta.  The Canadian Patent Act defines an invention as any “new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter.” […]

Purposive Claim Construction: Settled Law with Unsettled Application

Essien Udokang is a J.D. Candidate 2010 at Osgoode Hall and is taking the Patent Law class. Since the decision of the Supreme Court in Free World (2000 SCC 66, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 1024) it is supposedly settled law that courts are to construe the claims of a patent in a purposive manner in determining infringement and invalidity. […]

Efficacy of TRIPS public health amendment raises concern at the WTO

Nirav Bhatt is an LLM candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. WTO members on 2 March 2010, debated the question of whether a 2003 decision designed to improve access to medicines is working. Although opinions expressed in the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council varied, members agreed that they should look at real-life […]