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Special 301 Of The Trade Act Of 1974 And Global Access To Medicine, Sean Flynn
Special 301 Of The Trade Act Of 1974 And Global Access To Medicine, Sean Flynn
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Since its inception in 1988, the United States Trade Representative’s “Special 301” adjudication of foreign intellectual property law standards has been used to promote policies restricting access to affordable medications around the world. President-elect Obama released a platform promising to “break the stranglehold that a few big drug and insurance companies have on these life-saving drugs” and pledged support for “the rights of sovereign nations to access quality-assured, low-cost generic medication to meet their pressing public health needs.” The 2009 and 2010 Special 301 reports, however, indicate that the Obama Administration has not yet implemented this pledge into administration trade …
An Economic Justification For Open Access To Essential Medicine Patents In Developing Countries, Sean Flynn, Aidan Hollis, Mike Palmedo
An Economic Justification For Open Access To Essential Medicine Patents In Developing Countries, Sean Flynn, Aidan Hollis, Mike Palmedo
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
This paper offers an economic rationale for compulsory licensing of needed medicines in developing countries. The patent system is based on a trade-off between the “deadweight losses” caused by market power and the incentive to innovate created by increased profits from monopoly pricing during the period of the patent. However, markets for essential medicines under patent in developing countries with high income inequality are characterized by highly convex demand curves, producing large deadweight losses relative to potential profits when monopoly firms exercise profit-maximizing pricing strategies. As a result, these markets are systematically ill-suited to exclusive marketing rights, a problem which …