<story><title>WHO asks South African startup to replicate Moderna&apos;s mRNA vaccine</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/10/19/1047411856/the-great-vaccine-bake-off-has-begun</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gpm</author><text>The fact that this is &lt;i&gt;necessary&lt;/i&gt;, should invalidate any patent protection that Moderna (and Pfizer) have on the vaccine. Patents are supposed to work as a quid quo pro, you disclose the invention in exchange for a temporary monopoly. If it takes significant work to reverse engineer the invention, that quid quo pro hasn&amp;#x27;t been met, the patent should be considered invalid.&lt;p&gt;If Moderna and Pfizer want to protect the vaccine via trade secrets, from an intellectual property that&amp;#x27;s fine, but they shouldn&amp;#x27;t have any government defence against reverse engineering.&lt;p&gt;(Note: Talking in moral terms here, there is some legal support for the argument, at least in Canada (not sure about the US), but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t suggest that I could predict which way the case would go without a lot more information. For an example case along these lines from Canada, see: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pharmainbrief.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;fca-upholds-gilead-victory-invalidating-idenix-patent-relating-to-anti-hcv-compounds&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pharmainbrief.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;fca-upholds-gilead-vic...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>credit_guy</author><text>On the contrary, if you read carefully the article, you&amp;#x27;ll see that Moderna went out of their way to maximize the good they can do. They stated multiple times that they will let anyone who wants to manufacture their vaccine to do so, without them pursuing patent protection. They also went into some details how do make the vaccine.&lt;p&gt;Now, no matter how many details one gives, for someone without manufacturing expertise in that domain, the details will be insufficient. Think for example at the famous Saturn V engines F1. Almost one hundred were produced, quite a number of them are still around in various museums, all the blueprints exist, yet no one can make them again, because some know-how was lost [1].&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s so easy for Moderna to just &amp;quot;share the vaccine recipe&amp;quot;. At least not to such a degree to enable someone who admits they &amp;quot;never formulated a liquid nanoparticle&amp;quot; to start doing that just following a few pages of explanation.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ourplnt.com&amp;#x2F;remake-rocketdyne-f-1-engine-humans-moon&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ourplnt.com&amp;#x2F;remake-rocketdyne-f-1-engine-humans-moon...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>WHO asks South African startup to replicate Moderna&apos;s mRNA vaccine</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/10/19/1047411856/the-great-vaccine-bake-off-has-begun</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gpm</author><text>The fact that this is &lt;i&gt;necessary&lt;/i&gt;, should invalidate any patent protection that Moderna (and Pfizer) have on the vaccine. Patents are supposed to work as a quid quo pro, you disclose the invention in exchange for a temporary monopoly. If it takes significant work to reverse engineer the invention, that quid quo pro hasn&amp;#x27;t been met, the patent should be considered invalid.&lt;p&gt;If Moderna and Pfizer want to protect the vaccine via trade secrets, from an intellectual property that&amp;#x27;s fine, but they shouldn&amp;#x27;t have any government defence against reverse engineering.&lt;p&gt;(Note: Talking in moral terms here, there is some legal support for the argument, at least in Canada (not sure about the US), but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t suggest that I could predict which way the case would go without a lot more information. For an example case along these lines from Canada, see: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pharmainbrief.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;fca-upholds-gilead-victory-invalidating-idenix-patent-relating-to-anti-hcv-compounds&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pharmainbrief.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;fca-upholds-gilead-vic...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DangerousPie</author><text>Presumably there are parts which are patented and public (how the vaccine works in principle), and then there are parts which are not patented but a trade secret (how to actually manufacture it at scale). This kind of thing is very common.</text></comment>