Day April 13, 2020

The COVID-19 Pandemic: R&D and Intellectual Property Management for Access to Diagnostics, Medicines and Vaccines

[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.

PIJIP Supports the Open COVID Pledge

[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.

Patents and Coronavirus – A Role for Patent Pools?

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.