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The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s patent linkage: Unfriending or befriending the right to biologics?

The World Trade Organization brought Intellectual Property Rights into the multilateral trading system. The adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which formed part of the Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, established a minimum level of protection with respect to various forms of Intellectual Property Rights. However, in the aftermath of its adoption, several Free Trade Agreements, which include Intellectual Property Rights provisions of different potency, have come into existence. These Free Trade Agreements have given rise to what is commonly known as TRIPS-plus IP provisions. The provisions may renege on States’ obligation to promote access to biologics, medicines which are derived from proteins through biotechnological process. In this light, one recent Free Trade Agreement is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which requires its Parties to implement a number of TRIPS-plus obligations, including data exclusivity and patent linkage. Against the aforementioned backdrop, this article focuses on patent linkage and explores whether the provision allows the Trans-Pacific Partnership Parties to utilize TRIPS flexibilities to promote the right to biologics. In doing so, the article provides potential responses to the question, does patent linkage deter the realization of the right to biologic? With the purpose to do so, while the first section provides a concise introduction into the agreement, the second section discusses the TRIPS standard on patent. While the third part demonstrates the nature of obligations enshrined in the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s rule on patent linkage, the fourth section investigates the obligations’ implication on the right to biologics. The last section provides the conclusion.