A chemical patent or pharmaceutical patent is a patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 for an invention in the chemical

Chemical industry

The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials into more than 70,000 different products.-Products:...

 or pharmaceuticals industry. Strictly speaking, in most jurisdictions, there are essentially no differences between the legal requirements to obtain a patent for an invention in the chemical or pharmaceutical fields, in comparison to obtaining a patent in the other fields, such as in the mechanical field. A chemical patent or a pharmaceutical patent is therefore not a sui generis

Sui generis

Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....

right, i.e. a special legal type of patent.

In the pharmaceutical industry, the patent protection of drugs and medicines is accorded a particular importance, because drugs and medecines can easily be copied or imitated (by analyzing a pharmaceutical substance) and because of the significant research and development

Research and development

The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...

 spending and the high risks associated with the development of a new drug.

Chemical patents are different from other sources of technical information because of the generic, Markush structures contained within them, named after the inventor Eugene Markush who won a claim in the US in 1925 to allow such structures to be used in patent claims. These generic structures are used to make the patent claim as broad as possible.

See also

• Compulsory licensing (patents)
• Criticism of pharmaceutical patents
• Evergreening
  Evergreening
  Evergreening refers to a variety of legal and business strategies by which technology producers with patents over products that are about to expire, retain rent from them by either taking out new patents or by buying out or frustrating competitors, for longer periods of time than would normally be...
  
  
• Generic drug
  Generic drug
  A generic drug is a drug defined as "a drug product that is comparable to brand/reference listed drug product in dosage form, strength, route of administration, quality and performance characteristics, and intended use." It has also been defined as a term referring to any drug marketed under its...
  
  
• Patients Not Patents
  Patients Not Patents
  Patients Not Patents is a patient advocacy group whose primary activity is challenging the validity of medical patents before the United States Patent and Trademark Office . Its founder and Executive Director is Jeffrey Light....
  
  
• Supplementary protection certificate
  Supplementary protection certificate
  In European Union member countries, a supplementary protection certificate is a sui generis, extension of a patent under a specific, different, set of right. This type of right is available for medicinal products, such as drugs, and plant protection products, such as insecticides, and herbicides...
  
  

Further reading

• European Commission, Pharmaceuticals, Sector Inquiry, 2008 (Public Consultation, Preliminary Report).
• "Patents and Pharmaceuticals", a paper given on 29 November 2008 at the Presentation of the Directorate-General of Competition’s Preliminary Report of the Pharma-sector inquiry, by the Rt. Hon. Sir Robin Jacob
• India wins landmark patent battle, BBC News, March 9, 2005
• "HIV/AIDS, Patents and the TRIPS Agreement: Issues and Options", United States Congressional Research Service, July 27, 2001
• "Pharmaceutical Patent Term Extensions: A Brief Explanation", United States Congressional Research Service, January 31, 2002