Ceilings in the TRIPS Agreement and the doctrine of abuse of patent rights

The debate on the possible counterproductive effects of the patent system has been on many agendas in the past decade. Different phenomena are being described which relate to the increasing number of patents, their quality, their scope and the ways they are being used and applied for.
 
Against this background, it comes to see whether the patent system is adequately equipped to deal with this wide variety of issues. Although being quite a flexible and abstract system, patent regulation is in essence a very positivistic legal entity that hardly developed or incorporated jurisprudential doctrines. Moreover, the quality of patents very much depends on the abilities of patent examiners, yet these are under pressure with the increase of patenting activities.
 
This projects aims to investigate a number of cases described as potential abuses of the patent system so as  to analyse whether the patent system as it stands can deal with the matter; whether positive patent law adaptation is needed; or whether an incorporation of the doctrine of 'abuse of rights' into patent law could provide a useful mechanism.
 
In a second stage, the matter will be placed in the context of international law. Since the TRIPs Agreement only sets minimum standards, debate here very much moves into the discussion on maximum standards or 'ceilings'. The case studies similarly will be used to analyse whether the TRIPs Agreement leaves enough room for countries to tackle cases considered to be abuses, whether ceilings should be set in place (forcing countries to adopt certain maxima), or whether embracing the doctrine of abuse of rights could help countries to deal with a number of cases in a TRIPs compliant way.