Abstract:
The controversy arising from the HIV/AIDS pandemic and global health crisis has triggered and spurred the call for better access to medicines and medical treatments. Some developing countries have expressed concerns that patents on medicines and treatments may impede access to affordable healthcare. This article builds on the works of eminent scholars in relation to patents and public health. It seeks to highlight the need to persevere with the quest to achieve an appropriate trade-off between protection of ideas to encourage innovation and investment thereof and ensuring that protection itself does not stifle further innovation and access to medicine for public health. This is particularly so in the development of new technologies and medicines which entail considerable investment in research and development that is fraught with significant risks and uncertainties. It will also provide some observations on selected avenues of reform.