nal standard say?
This is the ethical, moral and the legal dilemma the countries across the world are facing. States including India, South Africa and also USA are urging for waiver in patent protection in COVID-19 vaccine while influential people like Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, are advocating against the total waiver of patent protection.
Why is patent protection being discussed amid Pandemic?
For now, the patent protection has become a major obstacle to mass vaccination drives esp. in middle and low income countries. Last fall, a group of developing countries led by India and South Africa proposed to the World Trade Organization (WTO) that vaccine patents and other COVID-related products be waived. This idea should be seriously considered because a temporary IP waiver might help accelerate the end of the pandemic. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical firms and Western nations, including the EU, the United Kingdom, and – at the time – the United States, were quick to criticize the ideas. But in a shock move, the US government has declared that it supports waiving patent rights for COVID-19 vaccines, a step that will increase supply and enable people all over the world to get the vaccine.
A small number of countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, some of the members of the European Union, Japan, Norway, Singapore continue to oppose a waiver that would enable access to COVID-19 tools during the pandemic, ahead of WTO talks on patents on the tools. If the waiver were approved, countries could manufacture COVID-19 vaccines and drugs on a larger scale and at lower prices.
Why is Patent waiver so important for now?
With highly infectious new variants of the coronavirus spreading across many low- and middle-income countries, it’s vital to make sure any current and future medical tools are available in adequate quantities and on time, particularly for frontline health workers in developing countries. The World Health Organization’s Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan has said that India’s ban on the export of coronavirus vaccines had a severe impact on 91 countries. If increasing the number of global suppliers of medical tools is not prioritized, people in these countries will remain in a disproportionately disadvantageous position for access. The proposed IP waiver could provide a more expedited and automatic policy option for governments at the international level to facilitate increased access, instead of only relying on voluntary measures by the pharmaceutical industry.
Witnessing the current scenario and the governments battling for access to some diagnostics and protective equipment early in the pandemic, it was clear that least developed countries like Nepal and many others would be at the backfoot when it came to accessing scarce medical solutions. Rather than creating a major new loophole in the IP system by waiving patents, it is the idea urged by countries to expand access to vaccine technologies under the current WTO agreement known as Trips.
How can this waiver contribute to the fight against Pandemic?
Voluntary waivers or compulsory licensing!
To combat the crisis, one of the solutions being considered at the policy level and in the government is to use the compulsory license to shore up vaccine production by incorporating more and more firms. Patent owners can prefer compulsory licensing because they will still be entitled to royalties.
Compulsory licensing does help developing nations and LDCs!
Compulsory licenses are mainly intended to enable domestic production; although it is possible for a country to receive a compulsory license for export production in another country, this system has proven difficult to implement in practice. This, in fact, affects developing countries. The major issue here would be whether or not to waive the Patent right regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. A compulsory licensing system exists under Trips, also known as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which requires a government to license a patented invention to a third party w