NAV

Drug patent

Synonyms:

  • Drug patent
  • intellectual property
  • patent right
  • patent rights
  • property right

 In DrugBank, a patent is a property right issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to an inventor for a limited time, in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted. Drugs may be issued multiple patents.

When a researcher or group of researchers develop a new drug or tool that may be useful, they may wish to apply for a patent in order to ensure that they or their employer may benefit financially 1, 2.

DrugBank displays patent information which is imported from the USPTO via PatentsView data extracts as well as the FDA Orange Book, making it a condensed resource for determining existing patent information. Patent applicants often thoroughly search patent and scientific databases prior to preparing or filing a patent application to determine whether the invention has already been patented.  

Concise information regarding patents for individual drugs may be found under the "Pharmacoeconomics" section of a drug entry in the DrugBank database  3.  Each patent is accompanied by a patent number, countries using the patent rights, dates of patent approval and expiry, as well as information regarding extension of the patent for pediatric use.

References:

  1. Latimer MT: Patenting inventions arising from biological research. Genome Biol. 2005;6(1):203. doi: 10.1186/gb-2004-6-1-203. Epub 2004 Dec 20. [Article]
  2. Bergeaud A, Potiron Y, Raimbault J: Classifying patents based on their semantic content. PLoS One. 2017 Apr 26;12(4):e0176310. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176310. eCollection 2017. [Article]
  3. Valsartan patents example, DrugBank [File]