Research Project

Investigator:
Irene Calboli

Abstract:
This research project explores the principle of intellectual property (IP) exhaustion and the parallel imports of pharmaceuticals. Several commentators have addressed this debate before, yet disagreements and uncertainty continue to characterize this important area of IP and international trade. Certainly, domestic policies on IP exhaustion are not the only barrier to parallel imports of pharmaceuticals, as these imports are also subjected to national marketing approvals, import authorizations, and other formalities. Still, domestic policies on IP exhaustion remain crucial should the national authorities grant importers the necessary marketing approvals and import authorizations to actually import the medicines into the national territory. In this instance, these imports would be treated as legitime imports only in jurisdictions in which domestic policies on IP exhaustion allows the imports of genuine but unauthorized products. To the contrary, these imports would be treated as IP infringements should domestic policies on IP exhaustion not authorize the products into the national territory. In particular, this research projects explores the domestic policies on exhaustion in selected countries and elaborates on how different solutions—national, international, or regional exhaustion—impact the parallel trade of pharmaceuticals. The projects additionally elaborates on the impact of overlapping IP rights and highlights how these overlaps affect parallel imports, in particular when a country adopts diverging domestic policies on separate IP rights.