[1] Reto Hilty Director at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition is quoted to be saying, “Interfering with patent protection means playing with fire.\u201d Interview by Michaela Hutterer, 15 March 2021, Available online: https:\/\/www.mpg.de\/16579491\/patent-protection-vaccines-covid-10-reto-hilty, retrieved on 7 May <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have already seen this with the HIV epidemic in\nAfrica in 1999, which lead to a WTO-ministerial declaration in Doha in 2001,\nwhich finally ended as amendment to TRIPs Article 31bis in 2005. Yet it took\neffect only in 2017 and there are even some countries that have yet to accept\nthat amendment in Article 31bis. Also as result of this, TRIPs has instituted\nprocedure to allow a light \u2018patent waiver\u2019 allowing exporting of compulsorily\nlicensed patented pharmaceuticals from countries with manufacturing capacity\nsuch as India and South Africa to those countries without such capacity at all.\nMany industrialized countries chose not to use this waiver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it was then, so now the problems are manufacturing\ncapacity, other proprietary information than patents, scope of waiver and\nlogistical efficiency. Even when general\nmanufacturing capacity exist, as is the case of India, there are concerns on\nspecific capacity to produce safe and reliable vaccines and drugs for\ntreatment. Also, as the formal procedure for allowing manufacturing will take\ntime and by the time when the measures are formally adopted, the demand for\nvaccines may look different, whereas the demand for medicine to treat would\nincrease. There are trade secrets and confidential data as well as no codified\nknowledge related to the production which research pharmaceutical companies may\nchoose not to reveal, for fear of losing confidentiality not against the\ngovernmental authorities but against potential competitors and generic\nmanufacturers. If the scope of this waiver is limited to COVID-19 vaccines,\nwhich we fear would be the case, then after the demand for vaccine subsides,\nproblem of access to treatment would still remain. Finally, logistical\ninefficiency in distribution may even make the newly increase supply go waste. From\na supply chain perspective, the earlier a patent is made free, the earlier any\ncompany can even think of setting up production. Pharmaceutical production\ntakes years to set up from scratch, much more viable is production changeover\nof existing pharmaceutical production lines, and within that, at sites that\nhave worked with specific types of vaccines before. Globally, only a few selected\nsites have worked with mRNA vaccines before. Even for those, production\nchangeover will take about 3-6 months, assuming expedited quality control and\npaperwork. What is more, it is not only vaccines but many of their ingredients\nthat are in short supply, i.e. there are some current bottlenecks upstream the\nsupply chain. More production sites would be needed for those as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing all these, US and EU announced that they will consider intellectual property waiver, potentially upsetting research pharmaceutical companies. So why these largely symbolic gestures? It means that these politicians aim to take the role of international leaders working toward public health. Maybe to give message to pharmaceutical company – a message to collaborate and negotiate better prices for the vaccines. We are also optimistic. We sincerely hope that this means after all these years of academic inks spilled on trying to persuade the governments of the rich countries to think about intellectual property protection in a more balanced manner, and to take fairness seriously<\/em>. Those efforts are perhaps showing some impact finally and we would see some roll back in expansionist policies in protecting knowledge and information, globally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nari Lee is\nprofessor of Intellectual property law at Hanken School of Economics. For\nresearch on fairness and intellectual property law, contact Prof. Nari Lee and\nFAME-IP Project (<\/em>https:\/\/harisportal.hanken.fi\/sv\/projects\/fairness-morality-and-equality-in-international-and-european-inte\/<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gy\u00f6ngyi\nKov\u00e1cs is Erkko Professor in Humanitarian Logistics, Humanitarian Logistics and\nSupply Chain Research Institute, Supply Chain Management & Social\nResponsibility, <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For research on medical supply chain in the COVID-19 pandemic, contact Prof. Gy\u00f6ngyi Kov\u00e1cs and the HERoS project (<\/em>www.heros-project.eu<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blog entry also on IPRinfo: https:\/\/iprinfo.fi\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 07.05.2021 Nari Lee and Gy\u00f6ngyi Kov\u00e1cs Intellectual property law has never been far from the international politics. With pandemic raging still in 2021 and the rise of vaccine nationalism, political […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2021\/05\/paragraph_sign.png\")