On 8th June 2023, Prof Aisling McMahon and Dr Opeyemi Kolawole, presented a paper titled “Patents over Implantable Medical Devices: Examining the Potential Impacts of Rightsholder(s) Control and Medical Device Users’ Needs?” at the Planting Seeds for the Future of Intellectual Property Law Conference – A conference in honour of Margaret Llewelyn, hosted by the Sheffield University.
The research was conducted as part of the PatentInHumans Project, and the paper examined how intellectual property rights, broadly, and patents in particular, can potentially impact how medical devices are accessed and used. The paper focused specifically on attachable or implantable medical devices, including, for example prosthetic devices, and examined how rightsholders decisions around intellectual property rights over such devices can significantly impact how users/providers can use and access such devices. Accordingly, Prof McMahon and Dr Kolawole argued that patent rights, and especially how rights holders use those rights, can give rise to significant bioethical concerns.
You can find out more about the PatentsInHumans project by watching this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVRHpzzuQM and by visiting the project website: www.patentsinhumans.eu