Seminario de investigación | The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Patent Examination: The Case of Argentina

Expositor | Ken Shadlen | LSE

Pharmaceutical patenting is new in many developing countries, required by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). In complying with this new international obligation, some countries introduced measures to reduce the grant of patents on alternative forms of existing drugs, i.e. “secondary patents,” fearing that such patents can delay generic competition after the expiration of patents on drugs’ main compounds, i.e. “primary patents.” Yet previous empirical research on measures to reduce the grant of secondary patents in developing countries has reported these interventions to have minimal effectiveness.

This mixed-methods paper analyzes Argentina’s 2012 pharmaceutical patent examination guidelines. Quantitative analyses, based on a dataset of all pharmaceutical patent applications filed in Argentina over a 20 year period, with applications coded as “primary” and “secondary,” demonstrate that the guidelines reduced the grant of secondary patents in Argentina. Qualitative analyses of state-society interaction in the process of patent examination, based on research conducted in Argentina throughout the period that the guidelines were in effect, provide a political economy explanation for effectiveness.  The political economy analyses also explain the 2012 guidelines’ long persistence, despite intense opposition from the international pharmaceutical industry and foreign governments, and their eventual removal in 2026.

Lugar | FCE-UBA | Aula Olivera