[Brook Baker] In the aftermath of the recent WTO Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement (adopted June 17, 2022), there may be some confusion about the many options that countries have for overcoming intellectual property barriers to allow alternative production, distribution, and use of COVID-19 countermeasures.  Of course, visibility into the patent landscape for particular products is essential to understanding freedom to operate in terms of products, ingredient, and manufacturing processes, and that work is complicated, though aided by the Medicines Patent Pool MedsPaL  and VaxPaL databases and work done by other researchers on COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutics patents .  Overcoming patent barriers on ingredients will not be a significant barrier if existing, patent-owning/licensed suppliers have adequate supplies and will sell at an affordable price.  If compulsory licenses need to be issued that cover export/import sources of ingredients, the process for gaining freedom to operate becomes that more difficult.