ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up two implications of the intellectual property rights rules on medicine prices and farmers’ access to seeds of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The country’s IPR system covers copyright and related rights; patents and utility models; industrial designs; layout designs of integrated circuits; trademarks, service marks, collective marks; geographical indications; and undisclosed information. The TPP provides for extending the term of protection to compensate for delays in securing approval for patents. The TPP requires its parties to practice patent linkage in the case of pharmaceutical products. The countries currently implementing this practice are the United States, Australia, China, and Singapore. Data exclusivity or the protection of undisclosed data for a given period applies as well to new biologics and new agricultural chemical products, which are respectively like the product whose patent had expired. The TPP broadens the set of signs that can be registered as trade or service marks.
