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The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) provides for global minimum standard patents. These patents potentially limit access to products and processes for the surveillance, tracking, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. A possible solution currently under consideration is a TRIPS waiver of the implementation, application and enforcement for the prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19. This article addresses the ways that TRIPS patents might be mediated including through TRIPS flexibilities. The article argues that there are sufficient means of derogating from patents (and potentially copyright, industrial designs and undisclosed information), although they alone will not resolve the access problems. The article concludes that the key patent problem is the transfer of know-how and that developing new ideas about addressing these patent know-how transfers is the presently unaddressed challenge., Competing Interests: None.

Over the past 20 years, there has been steady, year-on-year growth in the number of granted vaccine-related patents. It is therefore important that those involved in vaccine research should be aware of both the risks and opportunities that patents create. The aim of this chapter is to offer a brief introduction to how, and when, patent rights might become available to vaccine developers and to explain the potential risk of infringement of third-party patent rights and the potential consequences.This chapter begins with a brief introduction to the patent application process and the international patent systems. The advantages and drawbacks of patent protection are discussed, followed by an overview of patent infringement and the various legal safe-harbors that may be available for certain research activities. Other features of the patent system which may be of particular relevance in the vaccines context are also discussed, such as compulsory licensing, sovereign states' rights to use patented inventions and voluntary technology sharing agreements. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and recent developments in the field of vaccine patents that have arisen as part of the international response., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Academic scientists are increasingly engaged in translational research oriented toward bringing products and processes to commercial markets. They need to diligently analyze the intellectual property (IP) rights of others to avoid infringement, and use their own IP strategically. For this it is useful to perform a freedom-to-operate (FTO) analysis which includes searching the prior art and patent databases. This chapter outlines the principles of FTO analysis with a special focus on plant biotechnology., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Changes in academic systems with respect to intellectual property (IP) as well as the increasing demand for external funding for high-tech research have led to a more and more prominent desire in the scientific environment to pursue both publishing and patenting. This article looks at the current state of the disclosure requirements in the context of patenting of life sciences inventions. This is done with the aim of providing some practical guidelines for researchers as to when an invention has been made and at what point in time it may be worth/reasonable to start filing a patent application, i.e. when there is sufficient data and information to allow a reasonable expectation of success., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Argentina has progressed with industrialization in comparison to other Latin American countries and this process had a direct impact on the innovative capacity of the national economy. A constant search for market leadership, including the dentistry field and dental materials, stimulates the industries to launch new products daily. Inventions related to health researches are mostly protected by patents as intellectual property. A patent landscape analysis through searches in patent banks is a tool used to identify trends in different areas of innovations., Objective: This study aims to identify and evaluate the scenario of research, development and innovation of dental products in Argentina by a technological prospecting based on patents., Methods: A survey of patent documents was conducted by searching for deposited and granted patents of dental products. The search was carried out during January 2020 in the patent database of the National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina (INPI-AR). The terms "dentistry", "buccal", "dental" and "oral" were used to select the titles and abstracts of patent application reports. The information extracted from patent reports was organized in tables and Figs using Fig.Pad Prism 6 software to evaluate the applications., Results: A total of 363 patents were published from 1989 to 2016, mainly by international industries, 93.3% as patent invention and 3.0% as utility model applications on dentistry. Only two patents (0.5%) were deposited by universities, as the University of Melbourne (Patent number 20060102378) and Universidad Nacional del Nordeste (Patent number 20140104149), among which only the last one is national. Among the deposits, only 6.6% were granted; mostly were in force, denied or lost. According to the specialties, most patents were related to compositions (64.7%) and personal products (21.7%), also on dentistry/cariology (6.33%) and prostheses/implants (4.68%)., Conclusion: In general, we find that most patent applications are related to the preventive area, personal products and compositions for formulations. Few dental patents deposits are currently available in Argentina, suggesting that the importation of products into the area remains large, which can make dental products more expensive. It is important to invest in technology-based companies to promote increased economic activity, being a consequence of an investment in knowledge creation and intellectual property to the Dentistry area., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

The patent literature should reflect the past 30 years of engineering efforts directed toward developing monoclonal antibody therapeutics. Such information is potentially valuable for rational antibody design. Patents, however, are designed not to convey scientific knowledge, but to provide legal protection. It is not obvious whether antibody information from patent documents, such as antibody sequences, is useful in conveying engineering know-how, rather than as a legal reference only. To assess the utility of patent data for therapeutic antibody engineering, we quantified the amount of antibody sequences in patents destined for medicinal purposes and how well they reflect the primary sequences of therapeutic antibodies in clinical use. We identified 16,526 patent families covering major jurisdictions (e.g., US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and World Intellectual Property Organization) that contained antibody sequences. These families held 245,109 unique antibody chains (135,397 heavy chains and 109,712 light chains) that we compiled in our Patented Antibody Database (PAD, http://naturalantibody.com/pad). We find that antibodies make up a non-trivial proportion of all patent amino acid sequence depositions (e.g., 11% of USPTO Full Text database). Our analysis of the 16,526 families demonstrates that the volume of patent documents with antibody sequences is growing, with the majority of documents classified as containing antibodies for medicinal purposes. We further studied the 245,109 antibody chains from patent literature to reveal that they very well reflect the primary sequences of antibody therapeutics in clinical use. This suggests that the patent literature could serve as a reference for previous engineering efforts to improve rational antibody design.

Intellectual property (IP) is an important consideration for entomological research and provides a means to capture value from new discoveries. Herein, we describe an analysis of more than 26 000 patent publications from 2007-2017 related to the field of entomology. These patents were divided among 8000 patent assignees; however, only 5% of the assignees had ≥10 patents. Corporations accounted for the largest share of patents (59%), with individuals (20%), academic institutions (17%) and government organizations (4%) making up the remaining segments. From 2007-2017 the number of entomological patents increased by 400%, with the largest number being from China. However, unlike patents from Europe, Japan or the US, which target a range of countries, the Chinese patents almost exclusively focus on China. Among the array of subjects covered are transgenic insects and plants, repellents, recombinant insect cells, with the highest proportion of patents focused on insecticides (39%), followed by insecticide mixtures (27%) and formulations (21%). The top 30 patent assignees included companies/institutions from China (18), Europe (3), Japan (6) and the US (3). Among the top 12 entities, IP from the US assignees was distributed across insecticides, mixtures and insecticidal traits while those from China were more focused on mixtures. However, given expanding IP numbers from China it is expected that in the future there will be a greater impact on new insecticides and related technologies. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry., (© 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.)

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have become a key concern for researchers and industry in basically all high-tech sectors. IPRs regularly figure prominently in scientific journals and at scientific conferences and lead to dedicated workshops to increase the awareness and "IPR savviness" of scientists. In 2015, Biotechnology Journal published a report from an expert meeting on "Synthetic Biology & Intellectual Property Rights" organized by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation sponsored by the European Research Area Network (ERA-Net) in Synthetic Biology (ERASynBio), in which we provided a number of recommendations for a variety of stakeholders [1]. The current article offers some deeper reflections about the interface between IPRs, standards and data exchange in systems biology (SysBio) resulting from an Expert Meeting funded by another ERA-Net, ERASysAPP. The meeting brought together experts and stakeholders (e.g. scientists, company representatives, officials from public funding organizations) in SysBio from different European countries. Despite the different profiles of the stakeholders at the meeting and the variety of interests, many concerns and opinions were shared. In case particular views were expressed by a specific type of stakeholder, this will be explicitly mentioned in the text. In this article, we explore a number of particularly relevant issues that were discussed at the meeting and offer some recommendations. SysBio involves the study of biological systems at a so-called systems level. This is not a new concept in the life sciences - many former approaches in physiology, enzymology and other scientific disciplines have already taken a systemic view of selected biological subjects. Yet, SysBio has gained strong interest within the past 10 to 15 years. One predominant reason and a critical prerequisite for this success story being that the relevant scientific methodologies and research tools have become far more powerful and accurate. Remarkable technical progress allows scientists to generate, collect, display and analyse quantitative and qualitative data on biological processes and activities in much greater volumes, velocity, variety and veracity. The skilful integration of multiple heterogeneous data sets allows scientists to model and predict biological processes. SysBio's interdisciplinary nature requires data, models and other research assets to be formatted and described in standard ways to enable exchange and reuse of high quality data [2]. This allows a more effective utilisation of the enormous potential that rests in "big data" analysis. Finally, SysBio is often closely linked to or provides the foundation for Synthetic Biology (SynBio). Standardization and data exchange in SysBio may result in challenges and opportunities related to IPRs. The aim of this article is to raise awareness on these issues within the SysBio scientific community and to stimulate exploration of different strategies for dealing with IPRs in order to optimize access to and use of valuable research results., (Copyright © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Introduction: the functioning of the healthcare industry in any country is impossible without providing enough medicines for patient care. This problem can best be resolved only when the majority of drugs, especially vital, will be made at national plants (industry). In this context, competition from generic drugs is the most optimal strategy to reduce drug's prices., Aim: the paper should examine how the legal regime of intellectual property affects the availability of medicines for people and identify ways of supporting breakthrough inventions and counter ≪unreal innovations≫., Materials and Methods: for the purpose of study were generalized information from the scientific journals of medical and legal perspective, monographs by using a set of scientific methods. Namely under systematic approach have been analyzed the problems of pharmaceutical market, ways of producing generic and original drugs. Comparative legal method was useful for learning features of flexible mechanisms of the TRIPS Agreement and market regulation of medicines in the world., Results: based on the research was found that developed countries with strong pharmaceutical industry are interested in maximizing the protection of intellectual property rights, including importing countries. Flexible mechanisms of the TRIPS Agreement can be useful for developing countries., Conclusions: thus, successful development of pharmaceutical industry and health care should be accompanied by the following measures: - improvement of public health must be recognized as a main task of government policy; - substantial state support aimed at increasing the availability of drugs in the domestic market and the strengthening of export potential; - decrease patent protection of medicines and stimulate market launch of generic copies.

The success of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance depends on the vaccine markets providing appropriate, affordable vaccines at sufficient and reliable quantities. Gavi's current supplier base for new and underutilized vaccines, such as the human papillomavirus (HPV), rotavirus, and the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is very small. There is growing concern that following globalization of laws on intellectual property rights (IPRs) through trade agreements, IPRs are impeding new manufacturers from entering the market with competing vaccines. This article examines the extent to which IPRs, specifically patents, can create such obstacles, in particular for developing country vaccine manufacturers (DCVMs). Through building patent landscapes in Brazil, China, and India and interviews with manufacturers and experts in the field, we found intense patenting activity for the HPV and pneumococcal vaccines that could potentially delay the entry of new manufacturers. Increased transparency around patenting of vaccine technologies, stricter patentability criteria suited for local development needs and strengthening of IPRs management capabilities where relevant, may help reduce impediments to market entry for new manufacturers and ensure a competitive supplier base for quality vaccines at sustainably low prices., (Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

One-third of the global population lacks access to medications; the situation is worse in poor countries, where up to 50% of the population lacks access. The failure of current incentive systems based in intellectual property to offer the necessary pharmaceutical products, especially in the global south, is a call to action. Problems related to drug access cannot be solved solely through improvements or modifications in the existing incentive models. The intellectual property system model does not offer sufficient innovation for developing countries; new mechanisms that effectively promote innovation and drug access simultaneously are needed. A binding international agreement on research and development, negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization, could provide an adequate framework for guaranteeing priority-setting, coordination, and sustainable financing of drugs at reasonable prices for developing countries.

The strengthening of pharmaceutical patent protection globally puts strains on access to essential medicines. According to the present paper, this process has led to the collision of the intellectual property rights adopted in the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and the right to health stated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Several controversies disputed in the WTO illustrate the confrontation between countries with a powerful pharmaceutical industry and the interests of developing countries. It is concluded that the TRIPS-plus rules subscribed to by developing countries in free trade agreements which give the pharmaceutical patent holder more rights than those stipulated in the original TRIPS Agreement are incompatible with the obligations to provide access to essential medicines under the right to health of the ICESCR.

Because freely accessible resources allow searching without the constraints of costs for connect times, the Internet resources profiled in this article are intended for browsing. Includes references for some valuable patent information but not for extensive patent searching. (AEF)

In the past few years, transnational corporations and university researchers received patents for traditional medicines and for food and textile plants used by indigenous peoples without returning any benefits to those peoples. In light of U.S. and Canadian government claims that traditional knowledge is not intellectual property, indigenous activists are carrying the "heritage rights" issue to international forums. (SV)