Every country is struggling to vaccinate its population. Every country is trying to revamp and revive its trade and economy to build up for the losses incurred during Pandemic.
And when all try to fulfil their own interests, disagreements are bound to arise for what maybe Development for one, may not be for the Other.
This has been the case with Intellectual property rights over the life-saver vaccines so far.
The US has adopted a humanitarian approach by supporting the India-South Africa proposal to waive off patent protection, limiting the vaccine access back in 2020.
Though this is a temporary relief, given by Biden Administration, but it promises to render a long-lasting effect on public health and change the popular stance by developed countries over patent rights.
If WTO approves the proposal, it will open new avenues for pharmaceutical companies worldwide stuck in proprietary trade for production of leading vaccines, especially the ones from Third World countries.
However, the path further is not an easy one. Every Nation attempts to save its Innovator Companies. France and Russia have agreed to waiver but EU including Germany and Norway has voiced concern.
Even the philanthropic Billionaire Bill gates has strongly opposed the idea of throwing open the Intellectual properties although his good work has involved Public Health all along.
What are Intellectual property rights and How many?
According to WTO and WIPO, Intellectual property rights(IPRs) are the rights given to persons over the creations of their minds such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.
It usually gives the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time.
Why IPRs survive:
IPRs enable an Innovator to earn recognition or financial benefit driven from their invention or creation. The IP system in place, aims to balance the interests of innovators and the wider public interest, as it aims to foster an environment where creativity and innovation can thrive and flourish.
Medicines are awfully expensive to develop typically costing around $1 billion. And most of the experimental tend to fail from discovery to animal-Human testing or regulatory approval, derailing the process.
Companies and their respective Countries state quality and safety as concerns while such free tech transfer, even though the same companies when outsource to manufacture their patent-protected products in such cheap-labor countries, have no doubt.
All this has led to disparity in Vaccine access: for instance, US States currently have got more vaccines than entire African Continent from COVAX facility.
Some of these well-equipped Vaccine protecting Nations and Pharma Companies raised a threat of China trying to steal their innate technologies.
Is throwing open Vaccine Technology without Incentive and credit fair?
The most common defensive argument for patent protection is that fact that these Innovating Companies need a financial reward to respect the good work and encourage them to keep doing so, in future. That can be accepted though.
But in Vaccine research, most of the foundational Science was funded through the public Institutions and Governments across the World. Most of the vaccine technologies in their originator countries have received federal funding throughout.
“This is the people’s vaccine,” said corporate critic Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. “Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. … It should belong to humanity.”
It makes us ask: Do we still not need these enough, when public health infrastructure have collapsed worldwide and are in urgent need of re-establishments?
India and the Patent Law:
Under the Indian Patents Act of 1970, “Process patenting” was adopted by India.
Process patenting implies the patenting of the method involved in manufacturing a product, allowing another inventor to patent the same product as long as it was created by a “novel process”.
India needed this form of patent to produce Generic medicines domestically with abundant cheap labour and this helped flooding the market with Generics.
But in 2005, WTO formulated TRIPS (Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights) forcing India to change its patent kind i.e. it resorted to “Product patenting”.
The new system began to recognize the registered original drugs as products irrespective of its production method, thus making it illegal to copy drugs still under patent.
One can still exploit ambiguities in the International law to one’s benefit and only the generic drugs already approved in Indian market can be sold, lest the sellers pay licensing fees.
How WHO is helping to distribute and inculcate the benefits?
WHO is helping to transfer a comprehensive technology package, particularly mRNA-vaccine technology for now and provide appropriate training to interested Vaccine manufacturers in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).
This May help spark the unfulfilling production and satisfy the demand across the World, further clamping down on Pandemic.
Million-dollar Question: Can the waiver help resolve the shortage
With a fierce debate everywhere, this is a question that hurts every soul without a clear and definite answer to it.
IPR is undoubtedly a bigger part of the problem but several issues remain at domestic level. With removal of privileges, the domestic firms need support to resuscitate their production, financial as well as methodological.
They need to bind with Patent holder companies for tech transfer anyway. And this will take a considerable time to remove clogging inabilities and start operations.
Productions need acceleration, by any assistance possible: Government, WHO etc.
Here, we can likely learn to share as the countries with excessive vaccines can then “share to care”. They should understand that with emerging new, more infectious and sustaining strains, may endanger even their own efforts against the Pandemic.
We stand at a juncture now that orders us to be united in order to survive the Humanity’s worst of fears.