Compulsory licensing of inventions for medical proposes in a pandemic

Abstract

Compulsory licensing is a public health tool - it can be instrumental for alleviating insufficient supplies of necessary pharmaceuticals as well as mitigating prohibitively expensive drug prices. Today the compulsory licensing exists for public health emergencies such as the current COVID-19 crisis. In the article author research legal regulation of compulsory licensing medical inventions to in a pandemic. The study aims to set up the essence of the compulsory licensing mechanism to prevent COVID-19, identify problematic issues and make suggestions for improving the current legislation of Ukraine.
The author highlights a number of problematic issues related to the application in Ukraine of the mechanism of compulsory licensing of inventions for medical purposes by theorists, patent owners and patent authorities, in particular the impossibility of reproducing medical inventions (medicines) by documentation available in the Patent Office. Appeal to the patent owner without a real intention to enter into a license agreement and pay periodic payments, there is also no procedure for amending the compulsory license and others.
In conclusion, a number of measures that need to be taken are identified: 1) ensuring the provision of reliable, complete technical information in the patent application; 2) give the content and form of the application to the patent owner for permission to use medical inventions; 3) the procedure and conditions for making changes to the compulsory license must regulation.