Waiving patents on COVID-19 vaccines – an objective view

Lectures08. 06. 2021

Waiving patents on COVID-19 vaccines – an objective view

Online talk at the Association of German Engineers (VDI), district Hamburg, 24 June 2021, speaker PA Marschall

In order to combat COVID-19, waiving intellectual property rights is supported not only by NGOs but also by some countries such as India and South Africa since October 2020 and since May 2021 by the USA. The keyword here is TRIPS-Waiver.

But what is TRIPS about and what kind of intellectual property rights are meant? Patents directed to vaccines and/or patents directed to treatment devices such as respirators? And what’s about know-how?

The talk answers these and further questions. In addition, the talk looks at parallel considerations initialised by the WHO and WTO for combating COVID-19, such as C-TAP, COVAX and MPP.