The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights and Access to Medicines: Some Empirical and Theoretical Issues

Abstract

Unlike democracy, justice, human rights or climate change, intellectual property rights are often seen as legal and technical issues that are the purview of lawyers and a handful of regulators and need not concern others. But intellectual property rights (IPRs) are present and embodied in a multitude of ‘things’ that we use and have (or do not have because they are not available for our use or we cannot afford them). This book, for instance, is protected by intellectual property rights which you or your library are bound to respect, while my publisher, employer and I also share an agreement about how this property is managed. The music we play on our digital audio players is protected by intellectual rights and so are the films, artwork and shows we go to see. Integrated circuit designs and computer software, formulae for fertilisers and other chemical substances, new seed varieties, industrial designs, new environmentally friendly technologies, drugs used to treat all sorts of medical conditions, clinical tests, brands, trade secrets, internet domain names and most of the wines and cheeses on the supermarket shelves are all protected by some form of intellectual property rights or another. Intellectual property rights, then, are not simply legal entitlements filed away in legal texts; they empower and limit the way we live, learn, communicate, consume, create, innovate and develop. As such, how and what intellectual property rights are granted, to whom and with what consequences should be the concern of us all.