A chemical patent, pharmaceutical patent or drug patent is a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

for an invention in the

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...

pharmaceuticals industry This listing is limited to those independent companies and subsidiaries notable enough to have their own articles in Wikipedia. Both going concerns and defunct firms are included, as well as firms that were part of the pharmaceutical industry ...

. Strictly speaking, in most jurisdictions, there are essentially no differences between the legal requirements to obtain a patent for an invention in the chemical or pharmaceutical fields, in comparison to obtaining a patent in the other fields, such as in the mechanical field. A chemical patent or a pharmaceutical patent is therefore ''not'' a ''

sui generis ''Sui generis'' ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind", "in a class by itself", therefore "unique". A number of disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. These include: * Biology, for species that do not fit in ...

'' right, i.e. a special legal type of patent. In the pharmaceutical industry, the patent protection of drugs and medicines is accorded a particular importance, because drugs and medicines can easily be copied or imitated (by analyzing a pharmaceutical substance) and because of the significant

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

spending and the high risks associated with the development of a new drug. Chemical patents are different from other sources of technical information because of the generic,

Markush structures A Markush structure is a representation of chemical structure used to indicate a group of related chemical compounds. They are commonly used in chemistry texts and in patent claims. Markush structures are depicted with multiple independently var ...

contained within them, named after the inventor

Eugene Markush Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...

who won a claim in the US in 1925 to allow such structures to be used in

patent claim In a patent or patent application, the claims define, in technical terms, the extent, i.e. the scope, of the protection conferred by a patent, or the protection sought in a patent application. In other words, the purpose of the claims is to define ...

s. These generic structures are used to make the patent claim as broad as possible. In the United States, patents on pharmaceuticals were considered unethical by the medical profession during most of the nineteenth-century. Drug patent terms in the US were extended from 17 to 20 years in 1994.

References

External links

Patent Opposition Database
an online resource launched by

Doctors without Borders Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...

as "a tool which can be used to explore how to challenge unfair patents and their negative impact on access to medicines." () {{Academic publishing Patent law Science and law

See also

References

Further reading

External links