Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology’s Dr Karen Walsh and Professor Aisling McMahon’s research on intellectual property issues and access to health was cited in a recently published international ‘Review of Existing Research on Patents and Access to Medical Products and Health Technologies’ prepared for and published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Standing Committee on the Law of Patents. The WIPO is the leading global forum for intellectual property (IP) services, policy, information and cooperation, with 193 Member States.
The study cited and summarised an article written by Dr Walsh, co-authored with colleagues from the University of Exeter, which was published in the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC). It discusses the difficult relationship between intellectual property rights and access in the public interest. The paper examines the tensions caused by access barriers, the tools used to reduce them and their effectiveness. It was also the top cited article for the IIC in 2022.
The study also summarised and cited two published articles written by Prof McMahon. These articles were published in the Journal of Medical Ethics and the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly (NILQ). The article in the Journal of Medical Ethics examined the impacts of patents and how such rights are used over access to COVID-19 vaccines, medicines and diagnostics. It argued that such rights enable rights-holders to hold a private governance function over such health-technologies thereby impacting who gains access to these first and on what terms. The second article examined the role of compulsory licensing as a tool to enable States to compulsorily license patents over relevant COVID-19 technologies, and the limits of this tool in the COVID-19 context, taking the Irish context as a case study.