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back to article IPO: Patent laws must change to attract Big Pharma to UK

The government is likely to change patent laws because some pharmaceutical companies are at risk of breaking patent law when carrying out clinical testing, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has said. The IPO said that three-quarters of respondents to its recent consultation on patent infringement in pharmaceutical …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So we are to have to have a Frankenstein Patent Law

    To allow Frankenstein Drug Companies to exercise their inalienable right to bung.

    Britannia Hospital here we come!

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    1. Ru
      Reply Icon
      Headmaster

      Dr. Frankenstein was not a pharmacologist

      Medic and biochemist, maybe.

      Must try harder with your alarmist analogies. Maybe have a look at the activities of former members of the National Socialist party?

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    2. N13L5
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      lets see, who in their right mind would want to attact big pharma???

      All they are known for is ripping off patients and the government, and make you more sick than you were before. They look at everything to see if they can't classify additional things as deseases, so you can eat more pills, for things that could be taken care off with the right nutrition.

      Remember how Coca Cola offered to help fund schools, so long as the planned classes on proper nutrition would be dropped? And so it was done...

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Because everyone know that the really big bribes come from big pharma so why should only American politicians get all the fat brown envelopes?

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  3. BoldMan

    I don't understand how using a patented invention in a clinical trial can be an act of infringement! Can someone please explain this?

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  4. Graham Marsden
    Stop

    Clinical testing in the UK...

    ... has diminished because we have introduced all those pesky regulations designed to stop the people from being victims of negligence in trials such as this one:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559760/Elephant-Man-drug-trial-victim-set-win-2million-payout-losing-toes-fingers.html

    It's far better (well, cheaper and more profitable) now for Pharmaceutical companies to do their trials on poor Indian people because the regulations are much more lax, the people are less well informed, there is little transparency on who is actually on the ethics committee which approves the trial, and if something goes wrong they don't have to pay so much compensation...

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/12/india-clinical-trials_n_896404.html

    http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/8/08-010808/en/index.html

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  5. NumptyScrub

    Patent violations during testing

    So, not being a medical / biochemical engineer, I am unfamiliar with the details of medical testing. I am however struggling to understand how biochemical testing *requires* violating patents held by competitors, which therefore somehow requires a specific exemption in law.

    Is there a similar exemption for technological patents, during technology testing? Do multinational tech companies feel the current UK patent laws are "too restrictive" to run trials of new smartphones, and would welcome specific exemptions from patent laws to encourage the UK as a "centre of technological testing excellence"? I'm sure Samsung would approve of such measures :)

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  6. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Can we just scrap the whole steaming pile of ... patents ... and start again?

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  7. A J Stiles

    Here's an idea

    Here's an idea for drug patent reform:

    Grant a blanket exemption from all royalties on patented drugs or procedures, when used for treating NHS patients in NHS hospitals.

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  8. kain preacher

    Patent violations during testing

    Here two scenarios they mostly likely mean. Reverse engineering. You take crestor analyze it then tweak enough molecules in it so you claim that it's a different drug. You have a control group, then one group taking crestor and another group taking your new drug. You want to see if your drug is as effective as crestor , but at the same time you can see how effective crestor really is .

    The makers of lipotor want to prove that it's better than crestor or that crestor is a waste of time and money.

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