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Article Use of Medical Technology in Time of War: Security Exception of the WTO Trips Agreement
Authors OKSANA KASHYNTSEVA , SERGIY KONDRATYUK
Name of magazine Legal journal «Law of Ukraine» (Ukrainian version)
Issue 9 / 2023
Pages 48 - 62
Annotation

The relevance of the conducted research is related to current challenges regarding the supply of medicines and their cost against the background of huge losses in the dead and wounded among the military and the civilian population, a decrease in the income of the population and an extremely difficult situation with a deficit of the state budget in Ukraine. Intellectual property rights, by limiting competition in the market, contribute to maintaining high prices for medicinal products and limiting sources of supply. At the same time, in the absence of patent barriers to market access for cheaper generic versions of medicines, optimal pricing and supply opportunities can be achieved.

The purpose of this article is to study the ways of limiting intellectual property rights allowed by international law within the framework of the WTO TRIPS Agreement, which are the most convenient and effective in the conditions of a full-scale war, which will potentially contribute to the formulation of separate proposals for improving the legislation of Ukraine on relevant issues.

Within the scope of the article, the authors describe the main ways and approaches available within the framework of international intellectual property law to limit intellectual property rights, the so-called TRIPS flexibilities, in order to ensure optimal access of the population to medical products and create an optimal balance between private rights and public interests. It was determined that the most effective and convenient for implementation in wartime would be the application of the security exception under Article 73 of the TRIPS Agreement.

An analysis of the available legal practice on the application by other countries of the security exception in the framework of dispute settlement by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body was carried out. According to the two cases considered, the test for justifying the legitimacy of the application of the security exception by the WTO member countries, which was applied by the Dispute Settlement Body, was described and the potential compliance of the current situation in Ukraine with the requirements of the test was analyzed.

In the conclusions based on the results of the conducted research, the directions for further improvement of the legislation of Ukraine in the field of intellectual property, taking into account the requirements of the WTO TRIPS Agreement, are suggested by the authors.

 

Keywords intellectual property; flexible provisions; TRIPS; medicinal products; safety exception
References

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