Ensuring access to new treatments is a challenging task. In order for countries to identify ways of increasing access and affordability of new HCV medicines, they need clarity about patent status. To assess whether a medicine is patent protected in a certain country requires expert knowledge and access to specialized databases that are not easily available. The WHO Global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property provides WHO with a mandate to support efforts to determine the patent status of health products (element 5.1c). Despite the possibility of filing patents under the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 148 jurisdictions, there is no such thing as a worldwide patent. Patents are granted individually under each jurisdiction, depending on the national patent law and the outcome of the examination process. National patents that relate to the same basic patent (i.e. the same invention) are called family members and together build a patent family. In the present study, patent families are based on the Derwent World Patent Index (DWPI)