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Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights, Wendy J. Gordon
Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights, Wendy J. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
In the dispute over the enforcement of pharmaceutical patents, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is sometimes cited as giving patent protection the status of a 'human right'. It is true that the ICESCR provides for ‘the right of everyone’ ‘[t]o benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author’. But that does not mean that patent protection is a human right. Patent fails as a human right for many reasons, one of which is the lack of fit between current patent …
Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights - 2008, Wendy J. Gordon
Current Patent Laws Cannot Claim The Backing Of Human Rights - 2008, Wendy J. Gordon
Scholarship Chronologically
The majority of the world's countries (one exception being the United States) have undertaken a commitment at the level of human rights to protect the interests of persons who author 'scientific ... production[s]'. This commitment is embodied in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which recognizes in Article 15.1.(c) the rights of everyone 'to benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.'