Rishita Sumit Ghosh, Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur
ABSTRACT
The ideological conflict of private rights vs public rights has unprecedented historical development. In the same context, balancing patent rights of individuals vis-a-vis protection of the right of the public to access the patented invention has been a contentious point for the State. However, the past couple of years has seen an unchecked and unbridled rise of patent rights, leading to an increase of evergreening of patents. This raises a pertinent question to ponder whether the increase in private rights in the form of patent rights poses a threat to a competitive market and ultimately hampering the rights of the public to afford the patented invention. This issue raises further concern in the pharmaceutical industry as the evergreening practices not merely impacts the market, leading to abuse of dominant position of a particular player in the market, but also impacts the State’s capacity to distribute quality and affordable healthcare to the public without being bullied into an anti-competitive pricing structure, thereby ensuring protection of Right to Life of its citizens. This paper analyses several policy measures adopted by the Government of India to curb the effects of patent evergreening in pharmaceutical sector.
Comments