The Correlation between the Ownership of COVID-19 Vaccine Patents and the Choice of a Patent Waiver: Cases in the US, the UK, Germany, and India

Abstract

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 2020 has drastically changed people’s lives and caused millions of deaths around the world. Nonetheless, developing vaccines requires tremendous efforts and innovators usually expect to get rewards through ownership of patents. In this article, the authors take the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Germany and India as examples, to explore the co-relations between the strength of patents and the choice of patent waiver in the face of COVID-19. This article applies patent search and documentary analysis to explore the patent developments and patent waiver choices of the selected countries. Noted that US, UK and Germany are among top 5 countries where patentees of mRNA vaccines are based. The situation is the same when it comes to the vector vaccine. While India submitted the patent waiver proposal at World Trade Organization (WTO), UK and Germany are against it. the US once expressed support of it but then took a turn at WTO. After reviewing the strength of patents and choice of patent waiver proposal of each said country, it is concluded that the proposal is supported by countries which are weak in patent positions. The leading vaccine patent owner countries are either against the proposal or moving very slowly.