| ’Medicine accessibility’refers to the ability of patients to obtain affordable medicines which are necessary to maintain their health.Gleevec is a specific medicine for the treatment of CML.As long as patients insist on taking the drug,they can control their condition and live a normal life.The price of the original Gleevec is extremely high,with a box of medicine for a month costing rmb20,000.However,the generic medicines made in India have the same effect and cost only rmb200.The disparity between the prices is thought to be the result of Novartis abusing its patent rights for huge profits.People attack the patent system for protecting patents at the expense of patients’ right to life and health.The author thinks this kind of judgment is not correct,the legislative purpose of patent system is to promote the progress of human science and technology.As an intellectual achievement,new medicines developed have the right to be protected in the form of intellectual property right like other intellectual achievements;however,as an important means for humans to fight disease,medicines must respond to patients’demands for it.The author believes that the root cause of the conflict is the unclear boundary of drug patent rights.In order to define the boundary of medicine patent right,The author first studies the nature of contract of patent system,then tries to conduct a thought experiment:since the essence of medicine patent system is contract,drug patent contract can be reconstructed within the contract framework.Using Rawls’s way of thinking about ’the theory of justice’,the author first determines the subject of the contract,then covers the subject of the contract under the’veil of ignorance’,and thinks about what kind of contract they will conclude after consultation.In this process,the boundary of medicine patent right can be determined,and the balance point between medicine patent right and right to life and health can be determined based on the understanding of the boundary. |
