Intellectual Property Rights, Drug Access, and the Doha Round

How do different groups of states view their national interests on the issue of intellectual property rights for medicines?

Neo-liberals actually favor governments establishing rules to protect the patents and not allowing others to copy them without paying the original creator. This is intended to make it worthwhile for people to invest in doing research, writing new content, etc. After that, only the original creator can authorize others to copy their ideas and sell the products, at least for a time. Mercantilism/Protectionism – In the pharmaceutical area, a government that allows its own nationals to “steal” or “copy” intellectual property is basically engaging in the form of protectionism, essentially allowing their domestic producers to copy the content without paying the true cost of the original research and inventive, creative authorship. Intellectual property is a bit strange as a market concept. Governments protect intellectual property by giving companies or individuals who invent new things, make new art, or design new drugs or software a “property” right that allows only those people to sell their “ideas” for a fixed period of time.