Concepts on abuse of intellectual property rights and the doctrine of patent misuse

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the issue of abuse of rights at the heart of intellectual property, particularly patent rights. Initially, the article will address the issue of abuse of rights lato sensu and how it is treated by Brazilian civil law doctrine. It then explains the goals and values underlying the intellectual property system, which are safeguarded by the legal order, in order to better understand the situations in which abusive conduct by the holder might be found, and briefly describes the cases of abuse of intellectual property rights and of abuse of economic power, which belongs to antitrust law and promotes the protection of competition, given the clear complementarity between these two branches of law, while explaining that the two kinds of abuse amount to distinct situations and also trigger distinct effects.