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Intellectual property

Creations of the human mind are considered to be intellectual property. The ability of the creator to prevent someone else from using that intellectual property is defined by intellectual property rights law. Examples of intellectual property are patents, copyright and trademarks.

At an international level, intellectual property is protected through the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) Agreement.

Patents and other intellectual property rights play a vital role in encouraging the innovation needed to develop new treatments for many of the most serious and life-threatening diseases. We invest considerable time and money to develop each new pharmaceutical product - an average of $800m per product. If a new product could immediately be copied and sold by others we would not be able to continue to fund new research. This would discourage innovation and limit research into newer and better medicines and vaccines.

There are concerns that patents and the Trips Agreement limit access to vital medicines, such as those used to treat HIV/AIDS, for people in the developing world. We believe that neither patents nor Trips are a key barrier to access to medicines in the developing world and focus on them takes attention away from the real barriers.

Intellectual property rights and counterfeits
Counterfeit pharmaceutical products are a growing problem and can put patients’ health at risk through the use of low quality or harmful ingredients. Effective enforcement of intellectual property laws can help prevent the distribution of counterfeit products. We are working in close cooperation with governments and others in the pharmaceutical sector to tackle this problem.

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