Interview

IP Theory, Vol. 11, p. 1, 2022

10 Pages Posted: 1 May 2022

See all articles by David Gindler

David Gindler

Milbank LLP

Jasper L. Tran

Harvard Business School

Chris McMillan

Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Zach Shepard

Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Date Written: March 4, 2022

Abstract

COVID patent waiver is an interesting but virtually irrelevant debate. If every patent holder tomorrow morning announced “we will not be enforcing any of the patents that we have that relate to COVID vaccines,” you know what would happen to the worldwide manufacturing distribution of vaccines? Absolutely nothing would happen. It would make absolutely no change whatsoever patents are not standing in the way of anything. You know what’s standing in the way of this -- it is really hard to make vaccines. It requires extraordinary technology. The idea that starting a manufacturing facility from scratch tomorrow morning to build a facility that could manufacture COVID vaccines is nonsense. That is not going to happen, not at least in the time frame that would be required to actually have it make a difference in the pandemic. What would be required to change everything, you would have to have an enormous, historic, unprecedented public-private partnership to distribute biologics on a global scale, but the idea of someone coming along with no experience in this and starting up and building a facility to manufacture vaccines, people need to stop thinking about that.

Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, coronavirus, vaccine, pill, prevention, treatment, Alice v. CLS Bank, 101, patent, intellectual property, law

JEL Classification: K00, K10, K19, K20, K29, K30, K39, K40, K41, K49

Suggested Citation

Gindler, David and Tran, Jasper and McMillan, Chris and Shepard, Zach, Interview (March 4, 2022). IP Theory, Vol. 11, p. 1, 2022, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4053419

David Gindler

Milbank LLP ( email )

2029 Century Park E
33rd Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90067
United States

Jasper Tran (Contact Author)

Harvard Business School ( email )

Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
United States

Chris McMillan

Indiana University Maurer School of Law ( email )

Bloomington, IN
United States

Zach Shepard

Indiana University Maurer School of Law ( email )

Bloomington, IN
United States

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