Patents and the Supply of Therapeutic Products

Grants of exclusive rights to inventors are not a modern phenomenon. In some early civilizations such grants were at the pleasure of the ruler. In 1474 the senate of the Republic of Venice introduced what is believed to be the first law that provided a systematic procedure for obtaining patents for inventions. That system disappeared with the decline of the Venetian Republic. During the 17th and 18th centuries the English developed a system which has survived in its fundamentals, and that system has been adopted, with variations, by the great majority of countries. The justification for the system is the encouragement that it provides to invest in research and development and to publish one's accomplishments rather than try to preserve secrecy.