On 10-12 September 2025, ERC PatentsInHumans team members Prof Aisling McMahon (PI), Sharon Adedapo and Lauren Kane presented three papers based on emerging research conducted as part of the European Research Council (ERC) funded PatentsInHumans project at the European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) Conference at the University of Antwerp.
On 11 September, Professor Aisling McMahon & Lauren Kane presented a paper entitled “Patents & Access to Patented Health Technologies in Everyday Healthcare Contexts: Implications and Limitations of Addressing Access Issues Through a Right to Health Approach.” This paper considered the role and impact of the right to health in terms of its use by patients (and their families) and States, in securing access to patented health-technologies. They highlighted recommendations made by recent comprehensive report on access to medicines, vaccines and other health products of the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (2025), and probed whether and to what extent, the right to health can offer effective avenues to address bioethical implications posed by patent grant (and use) over emerging health-technologies.
Following this, on 12 September, Prof Aisling McMahon & Sharon Adedapo presented a paper on “Edwards Lifesciences v Meril – Injunctions as a Remedy for Patent Infringement for Health Technologies: A Critical Analysis of the Unified Patent Court’s Discretion to Balance Patient Interests and Rightsholder Interests.” In this paper, they considered how the new unified patent court will consider third party interests in applications for injunctive relief in cases of patent infringement related to health-technologies. They discussed the recent UPC decision of Edwards Lifesciences v Meril (November 2024) where an injunction was sought by Edwards against Meril related to its transcatheter heart valve and related technologies, one of the arguments against the injunction raised by Meril was the potential impact of injunctive relief on patients. The paper probed the role of the principle of proportionality in this context, the potential for the UPC to tailor injunctive relief, and critically assessed the likely impact of UPC approach to such issues given the scope of its jurisdiction for injunctive relief on access to medicines more broadly in Europe.
You can find out more about the PatentsInHumans project on our website: www.patentsinhumans.eu and by watching this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVRHpzzuQM