| 摘要: | Background: The importance of the patent system in the pharmaceutical industry lied on its innovation, not only in promoting innovation but also in ensuring that society coule genuinely achieve the fruits of these innovations. In the context of public health, the challenge was the right of the owner of the patent and the technological innovations that provided health conditions, and the best balance between the needs of the public. Though there were always arguments between the patent protection level and the patient's right toward access to medicine, the existence of patent protection and the need for public health and health development couldn’t be ignored.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to find out the impact of the level of patent protection on a country's public health indicators. Moreover, understanding what was the disguised form that would affect public health indicators in such a situation.
Method: The study used the online database form World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), WIPO Lex, to download the main patent law from countries, also conducted the scoring and grouping of patent protection degree by Patent Protection Index(PPI). More relevant impact indicators were included and discuss whether they affected the degree of patent protection and healthy life expectancy, such as Human Development Index (HDI), Health Workforce Density (HWD), Health Expenditure (HE) and Gross National Income (GNI). This study used ecological research. SPSS software was used for statistical analysis: descriptive analysis, dual variable analysis (chi-square), and multivariate analysis (binary logistic regression).
Result: The study was conducted in 198 countries to understand the impact of legal patent protection on public health indicators. The results of the study showed that the moderate degree of protection is the best for a country's public health indicators and healthy development. There was also a very significant relationship between the human development index and healthy life expectancy. In the analysis, it would affect the significant level between the patent protection degree score and the healthy life expectancy. Relatively in other influenced factors, the influence of health workforce density, health expenditure, and gross national income on healthy life expectancy were not so significant.
Conclusion: The study founds that there was no full agreement around the globe on access to medicine and patent protection regulations. There were many variables and modifications that need to be taken into account. There were also needs for both patent protection legislation and access to medicine. There would always be disputes over access to medicines and patent protection, but none of them should be neglected. Appropriate and sensible legislative norms could efficiently promote the creation of domestic public health indicators. |
