Compulsory Licensing and Exhaustion of Rights

• Main Authors: Tzu-Yang Chen, 陳子揚
• Other Authors: Ming-Jye Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/05236387881649614843

碩士 === 中原大學 === 財經法律研究所 === 94 === Intellectual property is now one of the most important issues for high-tech business. Research and development are the basic way to obtain intellectual property, but these ways are often time- and labor-consuming processes and, as a matter of fact, no promising future is ensured. Another way to acquire intellectual property is licensing of intellectual property. However, licensing is not always available between competitors, who wish to maintain their advantages in market competition. This restricts technology-importing countries to obtain newly-developed and sometimes vitally important technology for saving of properties and lives and improving environments and living standards for their people. This violates the world-wide standards of human right. Compulsory licensing has been one solution for handling this issue. However, traditionally, products made under compulsory licensing are subject to constraints of primarily manufactured for domestic markets and exportation is generally not allowed, because compulsory licensing deprives, at least partly, the owners of the intellectual properties of the right to obtain financial rewards by the exclusive right offered by intellectual property mechanism. This model runs well for industrial products that are not of life-saving concerns, but for life-saving or public health concerned products, primarily essential drugs, people living in the least-developed countries may suffers insufficient and expensive supply of medicines from the authorized manufacturers of the medicines simply due to the non-exportation constraint imposed on the intellectual property right protected products. It is desired, at least for the concerns of human rights, to adopt the principle of international exhaustion for the products manufactured under compulsory licensing so that those products can be freely circulated through all corners of the world that need them. In addition, the raising prosperity of international trading also makes it more reasonable to allow free circulation of products through all over the world without being subject to any unnecessary constraints. This would be of help for establishing a more competitive and prosperous world-wide market, as expected in the establishment of most of the free-trade zones that have been established or are being in negotiation. International exhaustion of rights, although to some extents, causing damage to the economic rewards of the owners of intellectual properties, is one of the promising ways to a humanistic and equal world for human beings and prosperous world-wide economics.