From Antiquity to the Covid-19 Pandemic

From Antiquity to the COVID-19 Pandemic' is a comprehensive collection of varied sources illustrating how intellectual property has evolved in the context of medicines and access to health since Greek and Roman Antiquity. Intellectual property as applied to medicines and access to health has been the subject of much controversy around the globe, and it has been used by entrepreneurs as a tool for ensuring success in their commercial activities. This has led to the emergence of a special set of legal principles and rules that characterize the intellectual property of medicines and to a large extent make it different from those rules and principles that apply to intellectual property in other fields of business and invention. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the tensions inherent in the interface of proprietary medicines and the strong reaction of society at large in respect of pharmaceutical inventors and rights holders. As this book shows, these tensions have persisted since ancient times.