Dr Olga Gurgula
Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law (Patent law)

Research area(s)

Olga’s research is focused on the intersection between patents, competition law and access to affordable medicines. She has written extensively in this field, including on patent strategies by pharmaceutical companies that block generic competition and lead to high drug prices. Her research on anticompetitive practices in the pharmaceutical industry became an important part of a co-authored submission to the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines, which was included in its 2016 Final Report. In cooperation with Oxford Martin School medical scientists, Olga has been exploring the role of IP in the development of and access to COVID-19 vaccines, and the possibility of implementing open innovation models in drug discovery. She is also interested in AI and patents, and, in particular, their effects on healthcare. She made several submissions to WIPO and the UK IPO to inform their policy decisions on the patentability of AI-generated inventions.

Selected Publications:

• 'Drug prices, patents and access to life-saving medicines: changes are urgently needed in the COVID-19 era' European Intellectual Property Review (forthcoming)
• 'COVID-19, IP and access: will the current system of medical innovation and access to medicines meet global expectations?' (co-authored with Dr Wen Hwa Lee, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford) Journal of Generic Medicines (forthcoming)
• 'Strategic Patenting by Pharmaceutical Companies: Should Competition Law Intervene?' IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (Vol 51, October 2020).
• 'AI-Assisted Inventions in the Field of Drug Discovery: Readjusting the Inventive Step Analysis' International Journal of Social Science and Public Policy  (Vol. 2, No. 8; August 2020).
• 'Monopoly v. Openness: two sides of IP coin in the pharmaceutical industry' Journal of World Intellectual Property (Vol 20(5-6) November, 2017,206–220)
• 'Strategic Accumulation of Patents in the Pharmaceutical Industry and Patent Thickets in Complex Technologies — Two Different Concepts Sharing Similar Features' IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (Vol 48(4)(June, 2017)
• 'Anticompetitive Patent Acquisitions in the Pharmaceutical Industry' European Competition Law Review (Vol. 38, Issue 1 (2017)
• 'Drugs and Patents: Myths, Realities, Competition and International Practice' (Ukrainian article) Legal Journal (Yuridichna Gazeta) (7 February 2017 N 6(556))
• 'Patent Strategies and Competition Law in the Pharmaceutical Sector: Implications for Access to Medicines' (co-authored with Prof. Duncan Matthews, QMUL) European Intellectual Property Review, (Vol. 38(11))
• 'US Supreme Court decision on reverse payment agreements: new era in patent litigation settlements – FTC v Actavis, Inc.' Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, (Vol. 3 No. 4 (2013))
• 'Restrictive Practices in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Reverse Payment Agreements. Seeking for a balance between Intellectual Property and Competition Law' Global Antitrust Review, (Issue 5, 2012)​
• 'Overview of recent restructuring and insolvency activity in 2009/2010' (Ukraine) The Restructuring Review, 3d Edn
• 'Commercial concession: the regressive progress' (Legal Weekly, 16 March 2010 № 11); 'How to cut the Gordian knot or delimiting commercial and administrative jurisdictions' (Legal Weekly, 28 May 2009 № 29-30); 'Jurisdictional issues in IP protection' (Legal Weekly, 13 May 2008 № 20) (Ukrainian articles) 

POLICY & GOVERNMENTAL STUDIES:

• 'Ukraine DFID/FCO IP Court Project: The Final Report' (2020) (co-authored with Dr Noam Shemtov (QMUL), Anna Shtefan (Ukrainian IP Institute), Alina Trapova (Bocconi University) and Maciej Padamczyk (QMUL)) CCLS QMUL project funded by DFID/FCO
• Submission to the UK IPO ‘Open consultation: Artificial intelligence call for views: patents’ (2020).
• Submission ‘WIPO Impact of Artificial Intelligence on IP: Policy Response from Brunel University London' (2020)  (co-authored with Dr Hayleigh Bosher, Mr Simon Stokes, Dr Faye Wang, Dr Paula Westenberger).
• 'The ‘Obvious to Try’ Method of Addressing Strategic Patenting: How Developing Countries Can Utilise Patent Law to Facilitate Access to Medicines' The South Centre, Policy Brief 59 (April 2019)
• 'Submission to the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines: The importance of competition law in facilitating access to medicines' (2016) (co-authored with Prof. Duncan Matthews (QMUL))