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@article{193698,
        author = {Esha},
        title = {Informed Consent in the Age of Copyrighted Medical Information: Do Patients Really Have a Right to Know?},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {10},
        pages = {1126-1131},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=193698},
        abstract = {- The conventional concept of informed consent is being challenged at a time when medical knowledge and decision-making tools are sometimes stored behind proprietary systems. This article discusses the ethical conflict between the ethical right of the patients to know about their care and the limitation of the copyrighted medical information. We will synthesize literature on patient access to information, the privacy law, and ethical standards in order to determine whether patients indeed have a right to information full access when major data could be a proprietary. A systematic literature review allows us to find empirical evidence of patient perspectives and experiences (e.g. interest in accessing records, satisfaction with open notes), legal regulations (e.g. HIPAA, Cures Act) that can inform the current practice. We conclude that patients overwhelmingly appreciate transparency and have an advantage with open access to their records and the reasons behind their treatment (Han et al., 2019; Blease and DesRoches, 2022), and regulations are becoming more and more a requirement to share the information. Nevertheless, proprietary limitations of tools (Hays et al., 2018) and sophisticated AI algorithms (Park, 2024; Abgrall et al., 2024) may prevent complete disclosure. Findings of practice-based research demonstrate that the active requests of records are low even when patients are interested (Ross & Lin, 2003) and when information is available the high rate of positive response. We talk about the way informed consent needs to be modified and suggest policy and educational solutions so that meaningful patient knowledge is guaranteed despite copyrighted or non-transparent sources. Overall, the patients possess a strong ethical and increasing legal right to access pertinent health information, yet the right must be fulfilled by addressing the proprietary barriers by means of transparency programs and trust-building efforts (Hagglund et al., 2019; Walker et al., 2019). More empirical studies should be done to make the best practices in the balancing of intellectual property and patient autonomy.},
        keywords = {},
        month = {March},
        }