[Commons-Law] Patent Protection! Why 20 years!

[Shishir K Jha]

Hello,

I need help with a few specific questions related to patent terms. Even if
there are no clear answers available I would appreciate any reference to
literature that discusses the issues.

Questions: Why is the product patent period under TRIPS
restricted/enhanced to 20 years? Why not less or more? Is there any - as
one would expect - direct relation established between the length of
monopoly protection and the minimum time required to recuperate the cost
that are sunk into R&D expenditure.

For instance, for the US drug industry the dominant claim is that the R&D
cost per new drug is $803 mn. Though these claims have been strongly
contested, suppose for the sake of an argument we do accept it. Is there
any study that relates this figure to the average number of years required
for a drug company to make up on the costs [fixed or variable?].

We do know in the drug ind. case that the pre-clinical & clinical trials
and the FDA approvals together take away anywhere from 6 to 10 years of
the 20 yr. period + also the fact that there are many bumper drugs that
make more than $1 billion per year. Which means that quite a few drugs
recover their cost in say the 10 + 1st or 2nd year of initial marketing,
leaving another 8 years of realizing enormous profits.

There is also the point of a real wide variation in the kinds of products
that are given patent protection from lifestyle drugs to lifestyle
cosmetic products. Why should all of them receive the same years of
protection?

There seems something rather wrong with this picture or am I completely
missing the true reason behind the precise number of years [20] given for
patent protection.

Any help here would be really appreciated?

regards

Shishir K. Jha

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*** To be truly radical is to make hope possible
rather than despair inevitable ***
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