This book highlights the special issues arising in obtaining, commercialising, enforcing or attacking intellectual property rights (including protection of regulatory data) in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and chemical industries across the world''s key jurisdictions. It is unique in presenting topic matter horizontally by subject to facilitate comparison between country practices. The first two chapters give a general introduction to the differences between the jurisdictions and an overview of some of the key concepts in patent law. The remainder of the book is dedicated to a detailed analysis of the major legal issues arising in these areas of technology. Each component chapter has a comparative introduction, looking at the variances in the laws of different domains, followed by side-by-side analysis of the relevant regimes, including tables and flow-charts which summarise and explain the key legal concepts. The jurisdictions covered are the United States, Europe (UK, Germany, Netherlands, France and Italy), Japan, Canada, Australia, India and China.