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Publication

Does Compulsory Licensing Hurt Innovation?

Representatives of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America are planning a series of meetings with key government officials in Delhi toward the end of October 2010. These meetings are in response to an announcement by India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion that it will explore compulsory licensing as a means to make generic versions of drugs that U.S. companies have patented in India available to Indian consumers. Compulsory licensing allows firms in developing countries to produce foreign inventions without the consent of foreign patent owners. Put bluntly, this amounts to stealing patents of foreign firms and licensing these patents to domestic firms.

Author(s)
Petra Moser
Alessandra Voena
Publication Date
November, 2010