E. O. ERHAGBE

Intellectual property rights (IPR) refers to the ideas, inventions, and creative expressions based on which there is a public willingness to bestow the status of property. IPR provide certain exclusive rights to the inventors or creators of that property, in order to enable them to reap commercial benefits from their creative efforts or reputation. There are several types of intellectual property protection like patent, copyright, trademark, etc. Patent is recognition for an invention, which satisfies the criteria of global novelty, non- obviousness, and industrial application. IPR is prerequisite for better identification, planning, commercialization, rendering, and thereby protection of invention or creativity. Each industry should evolve its own IPR policies, management style, strategies, and so on depending on its area of specialty. Pharmaceutical industry currently has an evolving IPR strategy requiring a better focus and approach in the coming era. This work will focus on The Role of Intellectual Property in the Pharmaceutical Industry, critically examining how it has been structured to protect investments, time, money, effort invested by the inventor/creator of an IP, since it grants the inventor/ creator an exclusive right for a certain period of time for use of his invention/creation. Thus IPR, in this way aids the economic development of a country by promoting healthy competition and encouraging industrial development and economic growth. In conducting this research, the researcher will employ the doctrinal research method. This method was considered appropriate because it explains the law through primary internal evidence offered by case law, statutes, and materials derived from both primary and secondary sources.