Patent Pools: Intellectual Property Rights and Competition

Patent pools do not correct all problems associated with patent thickets. In this respect, patent pools might not stop the outsider problem from striking pools. Moreover, patent pools can be expensive to negotiate, can exclude patent holders with smaller numbers of patents or enable a group of major players to form a cartel that excludes new competitors. For all the above reasons, patent pools are subject to regulatory clearance because they could result in a monopoly. The aim of this article is to present the relationship between patents and competition in a broad context

The European patent system: dealing with emerging technologies

In light of recent controversial patent decisions in biotechnology, this article argues that the current European patent examination and opposition procedures do not suffice to balance the patent system These procedures do not provide sufficient guidance for patent examiners to deal effectively with the emerging life science technologies. The European Patent Office needs to instill more self-reflection into the patent system and foster interaction between the Office and patent stakeholders. In this respect, we propose that the EPO should establish an ex-ante, patent-granting advisory body that would consist of multidisciplinary staff drawn from various technical fields, and collaborate closely with the scientific community and other national bodies. It is expected that such an advisory body would provide an input to the existing patent system, since it would anticipate, control and reduce the possibility that patent examiners would issue low-quality patents with huge socio-economic consequences

Assessment of analytical techniques for characterization of crystalline clopidogrel forms in patent applications

The aim of this study was to evaluate two important aspects of patent applications of crystalline forms of drugs: (i) the physicochemical characterization of the crystalline forms; and (ii) the procedure for preparing crystals of the blockbuster drug clopidogrel. To this end, searches were conducted using online patent databases. The results showed that: (i) the majority of patent applications for clopidogrel crystalline forms failed to comply with proposed Brazilian Patent Office guidelines. This was primarily due to insufficient number of analytical techniques evaluating the crystalline phase. In addition, some patent applications lacked assessment of chemical/crystallography purity; (ii) use of more than two analytical techniques is important; and (iii) the crystallization procedure for clopidogrel bisulfate form II were irreproducible based on the procedure given in the patent application