Breakthrough update on the Covid-19 vaccine legal fight

On June 17, 164 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed to approve a temporary agreement to exempt intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines so that countries can produce Covid-19 vaccines without worrying about IP infringement.

The exemption period for the vaccine rights will be 5 years. In addition to the waiver agreement, the WTO meeting also agreed on other agreements such as fishing subsidies and food security, along with e-commerce issues, global pandemic response, etc.

This is a huge step forward for all of humanity in the fight against the Covid-19 virus as the proposal to exempt intellectual property rights for the Covid-19 vaccine has been called for by South Africa and India since October 2020 – when the pandemic is just beginning to have noticeable, significant effects.

It has been 21 months since the proposal was made. The WTO reluctantly accepts the exemption, although only temporarily for 5 years. 

Does the exemption still make sense?

If the proposed exemption is approved in 2020, or early 2021, it is certain that countries will quickly implement mass production of Covid-19 vaccines on a global scale and distribute them to countries lacking vaccines. However, now that June 2022 has passed, does the exemption still make sense?

Countries that are able to produce vaccines now certainly have enough vaccines for themselves and to distribute to other countries. Therefore, the demand for vaccines is not as high as before, plus the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic is slowly coming to an end. 

Accordingly, many people have pointed out that the current exemption of IP rights has no real meaning and is in fact just a ploy to try to redeem the name of pharmaceutical companies.

Expert opinions

Rahul Govind, a partner at illuminIP in New Delhi, strongly agreed that the governments have made the right move with the approval of the patent waiver: “Until now, only pharmaceutical companies which own patents were authorized to manufacture Covid vaccines. However, now the know-how can be shared and without embargo. Once the vaccine recipe is shared, any company which possesses the required technology and infrastructure can produce vaccines.”

He added: “Further, WTO has also allowed export of the vaccine which will enable countries such as India, which has the required manufacturing infrastructure, to manufacture and export vaccines without seeking permission from the original maker and also export to other needy countries. No doubt this will enable an equal opportunity to countries over access to the affordable vaccines.”

However, discussing the immediate change of the world following the waiver, Govind said that he doesn’t think the change will be imminent, as the countries will take months, even an entire year to develop the processes and commercialize them. 

The infrastructure needed to produce vaccines is not cheap and many countries don’t even have the resources needed to build one, no matter the time needed. 

AAA IPRIGHT – Global IP – Global Trademark Registration

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