Pledging Intellectual Property for COVID-19

COVID-19 differs from other recent public health crises with respect to its sudden onset, its rapid spread, the lack of any known vaccine or cure and resulting shortages of critical medical equipment. The convergence of these factors has prompted both governments and IPR holders around the world to seek ways to increase the availability of IPR necessary to combat the pandemic. Governmental compulsory licensing, IPR pools and voluntary IPR pledges have all been used in the past, though in situations that differ in important respects from the COVID-19 pandemic. Each is designed to result, to a greater or lesser degree, in a publicly-accessible “commons” of rights and technologies that are broadly available for use to support an important public health goals. Here, we compare and contrast these differing approaches to IPR commons formation and assess their suitability to address the COVID-19 crisis.

Keywords: COVID-19, coronavirus, pandemic, patent, pledge, commons

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Contreras, Jorge L. and Eisen, Michael B. and Ganz, Ariel and Lemley, Mark A. and Molloy, Jenny and Peters, Diane and Tietze, Frank, Pledging Intellectual Property for COVID-19 (October 10, 2020). 38 Nature Biotechnology 1146 (2020), University of Utah College of Law Research Paper No. 405, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3740148 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3740148