Author: Muhammad Zaheer Abbas

[Muhammad Zaheer Abbas] Abstract: The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the significance of the export-oriented compulsory licensing mechanism for countries lacking domestic manufacturing capacity. Article 31bis, the first amendment to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), is aimed at giving effect to the WTO General Council Decision 2003, which waived the domestic market requirement of compulsory licensing. In 2005, Canada became the first country to amend its patent laws to provide for Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) as enabling legislation to implement the WTO General Council Decision 2003. Canada clearly described its regime as a humanitarian initiative aimed at helping developing countries that lack sufficient drug and/or vaccine manufacturing capacity of their own and rely upon imports to address their public health problems. The legislation was compromised, however, by the conflicting desire to protect the corporate interests of patent-holding corporations.

[Muhammad Zaheer Abbas] Abstract: The current COVID-19 pandemic has put the problem of equitable access to health technologies in the limelight because governments across the globe are struggling to meet the health needs of their populations. Patent exclusivities add to the cost of healthcare by allowing supra-competitive prices of protected technologies. There is a pressing need to mobilize all means and resources to promote price-reducing generic competition. Civil society organizations can make an enormous difference by successfully opposing questionable patents. Patent opposition is an administrative safeguard which procedurally enables community organizations to play this crucial role as defenders of the public interest. This paper supports the adoption of the patent opposition procedural safeguard as it provides civil society organizations with an affordable and practically feasible mechanism to challenge validity of questionable patents.