Bharti Latwal, Amrish Chandra
ABSTRACT
Patent is an exclusive right given to the innovators to prevent the use of their invention from the 3rd parties. It is given for a specific period of time, that is, 20 years during which the innovators recover their investments made during the development of their innovation. To extend this monopoly right, many strategies are used by today’s pharmaceutical companies. Evergreening of patents is one of the widely used strategies in the pharmaceutical industry. There are many ways by which this strategy can be used to extend the monopoly right given over drugs. However, currently, due to an increase in competition in the pharmaceutical market, this strategy is mainly misused to prevent generic drugs from entering the market. This article describes the different ways by which evergreening can be used and how its use affects the life of the consumers, generic drug manufacturers, and the pharmaceutical industries. Hence, to prevent the exploitation of this strategy, appropriate measure needs to be taken by the government.
Key words: Evergreening strategies, evergreening, Hatch-Waxman Act, intellectual property rights, patent