Publication details
Jacob, Robin (2021) 'Unexamined Prejudices': COVID-19 And Patents Health Policy Watch News (15/04/2021)
Abstract
The conflict about patents and medicines is long-standing. The past few weeks has seen a flurry of open letters from academics, politicians and NGOs dispatched to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, President Joe Biden and other heads of state, urging their governments to support a proposal made to the World Trade Organization recommending a 'waiver' suspending IP rights, and the enforcement of patents, on COVID-19 health products during the pandemic.
But in the light of reports that Washington may indeed support the temporary waiver of IP, Professor Sir Robin Jacob argues that the proposal is at best useless, and at worst, would seriously undermine the kinds of medical innovation so long supported by the US. In this piece, he explains that what the critics fail to understand is that the patent system serves to advance the very innovation that leads to new medicines. According to Sir Robin, the English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer, the founder of modern utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham, said it all back in 1792:
‘So long as men are governed by unexamined prejudices and led away by sounds, it is natural for them to regard Patents as unfavourable to the encrease of wealth. So soon as they obtain clear ideas to annex to these sounds, it is impossible for them to do otherwise than recognize them to be favourable to that encrease: and that in so essential a degree, that the security given to property can not be said to be compleat without it.’
The patent critics should put aside their ‘unexamined prejudices’ and cease to be ‘led away by sounds’.
Read a full copy of the article here.