Conflict of Pharmaceutical Patents and Protection of Human Rights; Legal Interpretation of Article 27 of TRIPS Agreement

Today, pharmaceutical patents constitute an important part of industrial production and investment corporations have shown interest in this issue which is willing to protect these patents for assurance of investment in this area. While progress in this field has human interests, but the unconditional protection of such patents is in conflict with the right to health as one of the fundamental human rights. Therefore, in recent years, drug patents and their impact on the realization of human rights have become one of the challenging issues of intellectual property rights among developing countries. On the one hand, the developed countries want to expand the protection to pharmaceutical patent and on the other hand, developing countries believe that the powerful protection of pharmaceutical patent has have a negative impact on patients' access to medicines. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss this issue from the perspective of international law. Following this issue, this article tries by examining and legal interpretation, specifically by interpretation of Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement in the WTO jurisprudence, to review and explain the conflict between pharmaceutical patent rights and human rights.