Intellectual Property emerged as important policy issue of pharmaceutical companies. Intellectual Property is wealth of nation. The country growth is increases as the innovation are increases. The pharmaceutical industry growth also increases by protecting their inventions by patent. A huge investment in initial phase justified by monopoly of exclusive right granted at the end to recoup the cost of invention. The validity of patent is twenty years. Patent term extension given to patent holders extends the life of pharmaceutical patent and thus motivating companies to invest more in research and development. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the patent term extension in different countries and its significance in pharmaceuticals. In most of countries the pharmaceuticals can not be marketed until they have received approval from regulatory authority. The time required for approval process has been increasing over the years. As a consequence of the reduced patent life, the owner of pharmaceutical patents advocates that patent term for pharmaceuticals be extended. Once patent term has expired, a generic pharmaceutical company is free to copy the pharmaceuticals and significantly decreases their prices from patented products. The pharmaceutical company not able to recover the amount invested in research and development and the pharmaceutical companies reduces the amount invested in research and development. So the patent term extension is important strategy for pharmaceuticals to recover the investment by extending the patent term.
Patent, patent term extension, generics, pharmaceutical industry
