Pledging Intellectual Property for COVID-19

Authors: Jorge L. Contreras, Michael B. Eisen, Ariel Ganz, Mark A. Lemley, Jenny Molloy, Diane Peters, and Frank Tietze

Abstract: COVID-19 differs from other recent public health crises with respect to its sudden onset, its rapid spread, the lack of any known vaccine or cure and resulting shortages of critical medical equipment. The convergence of these factors has prompted both governments and IPR holders around the world to seek ways to increase the availability of IPR necessary to combat the pandemic. Governmental compulsory licensing, IPR pools and voluntary IPR pledges have all been used in the past, though in situations that differ in important respects from the COVID-19 pandemic. Each is designed to result, to a greater or lesser degree, in a publicly-accessible “commons” of rights and technologies that are broadly available for use to support an important public health goals. Here, we compare and contrast these differing approaches to IPR commons formation and assess their suitability to address the COVID-19 crisis.

Citation: Contreras, Jorge L. and Eisen, Michael B. and Ganz, Ariel and Lemley, Mark A. and Molloy, Jenny and Peters, Diane and Tietze, Frank, Pledging Intellectual Property for COVID-19 (October 10, 2020). 38 Nature Biotechnology 1146 (2020), University of Utah College of Law Research Paper No. 405, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3740148 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3740148

Author

  • Jorge Contreras

    Jorge L. Contreras teaches in the areas of intellectual property law, property law and genetics and the law. He has recently been named one of the University of Utah's Presidential Scholars, and won the 2018-19 Faculty Scholarship Award from the S.J. Quinney College of Law.

    Professor Contreras has previously served on the law faculties of American University Washington College of Law and Washington University in St. Louis, and was a partner at the international law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where he practiced transactional and intellectual property law in Boston, London and Washington DC.

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