Feudos e fármacos : o licenciamento compulsório de patentes farmacêuticas e o controle sobre o conhecimento através dos direitos de propriedade intelectual

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze whether the compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical patents is a sufficient instrument to reduce the impacts of informational feudalism on access to pharmaceuticals in the Global South. The standardization of intellectual property rights by the TRIPS Agreement (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) has reinforced this model of control over knowledge, as described by Drahos and Braithwaite (2002), in which large corporations monopolize intellectual assets and impose barriers to access to pharmaceutical innovation. As a possible response to this situation, compulsory licensing is a mechanism that, in exceptional situations, allows the use of patented inventions without the owner's authorization. However, it is necessary to consider whether this instrument is capable of overcoming the structural barriers that limit it, especially in the Global South. This raises the following question: is the compulsory licensing of pharmaceutical patents a sufficient instrument to mitigate the impacts of informational feudalism on access to pharmaceuticals in the Global South? In order to enable an in-depth investigation of this issue, the following specific objectives will be pursued: to analyze intellectual property based on the concept of informational feudalism; to understand the consolidation of the TRIPS Agreement and its impacts on access to innovation and the production of pharmaceuticals in the Global South; and to examine the effects of compulsory licensing in the Global South. The research adopts the hypothetical-deductive method, starting from the hypothesis that compulsory licensing alone is not enough to mitigate the impacts of informational feudalism. It also adopts a qualitative approach and the technique of bibliographical and documentary research, based on a critical analysis. In light of the above, it is concluded that although compulsory licensing is a legitimate tool to provide a minimum of flexibility in a system characterized by imposition, its sufficiency is limited by the international structures of control over knowledge. Not only is it rarely used, but when it is authorized, it comes up against the fact that the pharmaceutical industry and the innovation and know-how needed to produce drugs are restricted to the Global North. Likewise, the multilateral means of issuing compulsory licenses to promote access to medicines in countries of the Global South also have little to do with the repercussions of informational feudalism, since they were born conditioned to an environment strengthened by the control and policing exercised through intellectual property rights. Therefore, this work corroborates the urgency of rethinking the normative bases of intellectual property in order to build a more inclusive and human rights-centered global health governance.