[Public Citizen Press Release] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should promptly release all research data supporting Gilead Sciences’ request for emergency use of remdesivir for treatment of patients hospitalized with the coronavirus infection (COVID-19), Public Citizen said today in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the agency.
[EIFL] The Research Data Alliance (RDA) COVID-19 Working Group has released draft guidelines and recommendations for sharing research data in ways that support scientific research and policy making during public health emergencies. The group is calling for feedback on the draft guidelines. Feedback will inform the Working Group’s discussions and be incorporated into the next version of the guidelines and recommendations. You can post your feedback here. The deadline is 24 May.
[Krishna Ravi Srinivas] Abstract: The HIV/AIDS crisis showed that the traditional IP rules and models of innovation do not assure affordable access. This resulted in some changes in IP rules and the recognition that IP and trade rules should not become major constraints for affordable access. The current crisis provides an opportunity to revisit and learn from the earlier one. This calls for a rethink of role of IP and its use as an incentive. The Business As Usual approach will not work. The current crisis should be seen as an opportunity to review and rethink and to give new models and approaches a chance.
[Carlos M. Correa] Like other rights, patent rights are not absolute. There are situations in which their exercise can be limited to protect public interests. Such situations may arise, for instance, when access to needed pharmaceutical products must be ensured. Compulsory licenses and government use for non-commercial purposes are tools, provided for under most laws worldwide, that can specifically be used to address public health needs. This document is intended to provide legal guidance for the effective use of such tools, consistently with the international law.
[Public Citizen] Open science, ramped-up manufacturing, fair pricing and sharing of technology, among other actions, are urgently needed to reduce loss of life during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 254 groups including Public Citizen said today. The groups released a list of principles calling for action from governments, international agencies, manufacturers, donors and development partners.
[Germán Velásquez] The unprecedented global health crisis caused by the coronavirus –COVID-19– pandemic, during the first quarter of 2020, brings back with particular urgency the discussion about the research and development (R&D) model for pharmaceuticals and other health technologies. The COVID-19 crisis shows that there is an urgent need to re-design the global public health governance for health R&D. The adoption of a binding instrument –as allowed by Article 19 of the WHO Constitution– on this matter was proposed many years ago. This brief argues that it is time to revive and materialize this initiative.
[Open COVID Pledge Press Release] Amazon, Facebook, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), IBM, Microsoft, and Sandia National Laboratories announced today that they are joining the Open COVID Pledge by making all of their patents freely available to the public for use in the fight against COVID-19. Together, the group holds hundreds of thousands of patents and is offering to grant a temporary license that enables the public to utilize any of the pledgors’ patents in the research, development, and deployment of medical equipment, network products, software solutions, and other technologies to assist in this urgent public health crisis.
[Viviana Muñoz Tellez] The ongoing rapid spread of COVID-19 is challenging the capacity of governments and of the World Health Organization (WHO) to timely put in place a global coordinated response to the pandemic. Developing countries and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in particular in Africa are especially vulnerable to the unfolding effects of the public health crisis. A priority area for global collaboration is to advance research and development (R&D) for vaccines and medicines that are made available, affordable and accessible worldwide.
[Sean Flynn, Jorge Contreras and Meredith Jacob] PIJIP is a founding partner of the Open COVID Pledge, https://opencovidpledge.org/, and is providing institutional support for the project. This note explains our history with the project, how the pledge works, and why we think it will be helpful. At the end of this note is a link for organizations that want to support or use the Pledge themselves.
Patent pools are private arrangements that enable participants to operate under one another others’ patent rights, to manage and administer the pooled rights on a centralized basis, and often to grant licenses of the pooled patents to third parties, with the proceeds split among the pool members according to an agreed formula. Patent pools have been around for a century in industries ranging from oil refinement to aircraft to semiconductors to digital media. In all of these cases, pools have enabled the efficient consolidation of patents in a manner that has facilitated licensing and commercialization.
Israel’s top spy agency has been using secretly collected cellphone data to retrace the movements of those who tested positive for the coronavirus. The Polish government launched the “Home Quarantine” app so that people in quarantine can upload geo-located photos proving they’re at home. The South Korean government is using a combination of mobile phone data, credit card information and facial recognition software to track the movements of people who test positive for COVID-19. The government posts the details publicly to alert people who might have come in contact with the infected person. Public health benefits? Certainly. Privacy risks? Certainly as well.
[Eric E. Johnson and Theodore C. Bailey] Abstract: The course of a pandemic is dictated not just by biology, but also by law. And crucially, unlike biology, law can be readily adapted in response to a pandemic. Unfortunately, the current law does not take account of the compressed timeframe and rapidly changing social needs that distinguish pandemic times from normal times. We thus suggest three urgent, early lessons for law in the pandemic context: First, free information flows save lives, an observation which has ramifications for freedom of speech and press, copyright law, and patent law. Identifying particular hazards that patent law poses to the free flow of scientific research findings, we suggest a government-funded reward system as an adjunct to the patent system to incentivize pandemic-relevant research and its rapid publication.