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Pharmaceutical activities have always been patent-sensitive, according to applicable legal frameworks. However, the vertical increase in W16 patenting since the 1980s has transformed the industrial and competitive dynamics of the sector, making it fundamentally IPRs intensive. Add to this impressive trend the extraordinarily complex and expanding web of market exclusivities associated with IPRs based on specific therapeutic features (say, the growing relevance of orphan drugs for treating rare diseases), and it is easy to understand how patent litigation – and related settlement opportunities – has become a central battleground for pharmaceutical companies. Accordingly, and proportionally to the number of patents, the possibility of using patents in an anti-competitive manner has been unleashed, with IPRs becoming a formidable tool (also) for defending monopolistic positions far beyond the original intentions of the patent system envisaged for the sector.
