Study Of A Few Problems In The Patent Protection For Traditional Chinese Medicine

The historic traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was an important part of brilliant Chinese culture. With China's accession to WTO, intellectual property protection of TCM became a domestic and international central issue. Although the industry of TCM was traditional, China no longer held the superiority in both market and intellectual property rights in recent years. The root cause of above problems was that the protection system of medicine was still deeply flawed. The greatest feature of the pharmaceuticals industry was the significant patent dependence and the high monopolization of patented medicine by developed countries. The most effective way to protect TCM was patent protection compared to the other existing methods and combined with the international protection of plant medicine by some developed countries. This article integrated the science of Chinese pharmacology with law to discuss the scope of patent protection of TCM, analysed present TCM's patent protection situation, pointed out the problems and misunderstandings, and proposed some strategies in order to have some benefit in the field of patent protection for TCM.This paper firstly defined TCM, summarized the connotation and denotation, and analysed its characteristics. TCM was applied in clinical practice under the guidance of a specific theory system, so it had different characteristics compared with Western medicine. This part discussed TCM's feature from the perspective of comparison with Western medicine, then explored existing TCM's protection modes and their insufficiency. The protection of TCM in our country could be divided into four major aspects: administrative protection, trade secret protection, brand protection and patent protection. In order to expound patent protection of TCM better at a later stage, the article analyzed the first three protection modes and pointed out their shortcomings.Secondly, introduced the system and concept of patent protection, discussed the necessity and feasibility of TCM's patent protection, and sketched the development of TCM's patent protection, then proposed a protection method for TCM from the standpoint of patent protection. Through the overseas cases which protect TCM successfully, we could learn that the tendentiousness view that Chinese herbal formula could not be protected by patent was completely wrong. TCM can be protected internationally by patents.Again, discussed current situation of TCM patent protection and the problems, gave a brief analysis to the actuality and problems of TCM patent application at home and abroad. Made a concise introduction of TCM patent protection in several internationally influential countries, such as United States, Germany and so on, in order to provide some reference value for China.Finally, proposed some countermeasures to improve our country's TCM patent protection system. Through previous discussion, we could see that there were many problems and shortcomings in the field of patent protection for TCM, which not only prevented TCM patent application but also hindered the development of TCM industry. So our country's existing patent system of TCM must be amended. It should be taken flexible patent protection measures to protect TCM in both law and industry, thus made a better development for TCM industry.