Earn a qualifying law degree at your own pace with the àËÅöÊÓƵ LLB. Dating back to the 1890s, it's highly regarded worldwide.
Course
Intellectual property and medicine
Module information>
The course will introduce you to the basic concepts of intellectual property relevant to medical research and development, pharmaceuticals and medical technology, genetic research and public health. You will gain an overview of key current issues, examine some of them in more detail through case studies, and in so doing develop skills and understanding which you can apply to monitor further developments in this fascinating area of the law. You will study the laws of various jurisdictions in the course. Much of the discussion focuses on English law, as shaped also by European Union (EU) legislation, but the aim here is more to illustrate broader legal principles than to give you expert knowledge of this particular jurisdiction, and we will also look at relevant international law and various other national laws. Indeed, the issues raised in this course go beyond the details of particular laws and involve critical socio-economic analysis of the relationship between intellectual property frameworks and the various industries contributing to medical innovation, the possible interaction with research practices and developments, and the consequences for various questions of public health, including individual property interests as well as access to products and information.
Module A: Intellectual property of medicine and its sources
LWM23A
- International framework and history of intellectual property relevant to medicine
- Categories of intellectual property relevant to medicine
- European and National systems (UK and designated jurisdictions)
- Applications of intellectual property in medical and pharmaceutical industries
Module B: Access to medicines
LWM23B
- Overview of the issues and history of the campaign
- Human right to health and the ethics of patents
- TRIPS Agreement
- Doha Development Round (Ministerial Declaration; Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health; Decision on Paragraph 6)
- Paragraph 6 System
Module C: Patents and life forms
LWM23C
- Legal and socio-legal concept of life form
- Ethical considerations and exceptions
- Medical biotechnologies
- International, European and designated domestic frameworks (including European Biotechnology Directive)
- Genes and gene sequences
- Cloning
- Germ-line modification technology
- Embryos
Module D: Property in the person
LWM23D
- Medical and genetic privacy and intellectual property
- Genetic privacy
- Genetic sampling and collection; genomic libraries and databases
- Traditional medicine and genetic resources
Assessment
Each module is assessed by a 45-minute unseen written exam.
Sequence
It is strongly recommended you attempt Module A first.
How to apply
You can apply to study a module individually as a standalone unit or as part of a Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma or Master of Laws qualification. (In either scenario, they must be studied in order.)
These modules also contribute towards the following specialist pathways for Laws:
- Commercial and Corporate Law
- Common Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- International Business Law
- International Intellectual Property Law
- Medicine and the Law
