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Pharmaceutical patents :
Radoilska, Lubomira
Radoilska, Lubomira
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Pharmaceutical patents are often presented as a source of conflicting duties reflecting the moral dilemma between health and property. This prevalent approach insulates the debate over patented medicines from the wider discussion on intellectual property and favours solutions based on corporate social responsibility. In doing so, it succumbs to a fallacy, the ‘normative resilience’ of property which allows respect for property to survive the understanding of its injustice. This paper aims to remedy the situation by exploring pharmaceutical patents as a standard rather than exceptional case of intellectual property. A closer look at the main justifications in hand, i.e. the arguments from utility and liberty shows that they both fail to support pharmaceutical patents by being either indecisive, or undermining their cause. This outcome is explored in the light of intellectual property’s recent expansion beyond traditional safeguards, e.g. non-patentability of natural laws and basic food.
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Preprint
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2008
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With permission of the license/copyright holder