Impact of COVID-19 on Intellectual Property

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated in numerous ways as to how collaborative research benefits in a pandemic situation. As data is being produced, released freely every day on pre-print servers and scientific journals which is proving to be crucial to understand the biology of the virus which will further lead to search and development of possible vaccines and drugs. Moreover, by one estimate COVID-19 literature produced and published since January 2020 has reached more than 23,000 papers and is doubling every 20 days. Promoting unprecedented collaborative research is the first step towards endorsing of voluntary intellectual property pool, as discovery and research being publicly shared with open access resources which was earlier limited to only private institutions will help researchers and scientist to work more efficiently with more innovative ideas.

Patent Pooling

A patent pool is basically an agreement between parties who are patent holders to license their patented products and technology to each other or third parties for the purpose of sharing their intellectual property rights. Patent pools generally come into the picture once there is a need to share mature and complex technologies that require the use of patents that are held by the other parties and cannot be successfully worked without infringing them. Although it is beneficial for having patent pools as they have an effect on innovation and competitive behavior. It will also make the manufacturing of the drugs/vaccines easy for the treatment of the virus. Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) is a United Nations-backed organization that was founded in 2010 based in Geneva. It seeks voluntary licenses from the patent holders of antiretroviral drugs to create a pooled resource of patent innovations. Moreover, it plays a double role in benefiting pharmaceutical innovators and taking care of public health.