In October 2020, the governments of India and South Africa submitted a proposal to the World Trade Organization requesting that the multilateral body waive intellectual property protections “in relation to prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19,” as provided by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Proponents of the waiver claimed that suspending IP protections for Covid-19 technologies would expand access to these products worldwide, namely vaccines.
Despite the launch of hundreds of private-sector partnerships to ensure access to these products — and ample evidence that vaccine hesitancy and inadequate infrastructure were to blame for any vaccine, treatment, and diagnostic accessibility issues — the World Trade Organization, with the support of the Biden administration, agreed to suspend the TRIPS Agreement for Covid-19 vaccines in June 2022.
The World Trade Organization was set to decide whether to extend that waiver to Covid-19 diagnostics and therapeutics in December 2022, until the Biden administration announced it would support an extension of that decision deadline and charged the United States International Trade Commission with completing an investigation into the utility of expanding the waiver. The ITC’s investigation is ongoing and is expected to conclude in October 2023.
At every stage of this process, dozens of domestic and foreign leaders and stakeholders have voiced opposition to each iteration of the proposed waiver due to their lack of short-term benefits and threat of long-term detriments. They include:
Richard Timmer, “Protect the next generation of pandemic drugs,” Albany Herald, 1/7/2023
Sandip Shah, “Don’t take medical miracles for granted,” The Highland County Press, 12/15/2022
Joe Crowley, “COVID-19 patent waiver won’t save lives. It could claim them,” Yahoo! News, 11/23/2022
Marc Busch, “The Folly of Expanding the TRIPS Waiver,” RealClear Policy, 11/10/2022
Jim Edwards, “Will Biden Let China Steal Our Technology?,” Townhall, 10/18/2022
Marc Busch, “Congress Needs to Stop the Expansion of the TRIPS Waiver”, InsideSources, 10/17/2022
Walt Copan, “China’s Ally in Stealing Western IP: the United States,” RealClearPolicy, 10/13/2022
Paul Michel, “Don’t Compromise American Innovation,” Townhall.com, 6/14/2022
Peter Pitts, “Amidst New Outbreak, WTO Shouldn’t Monkey with TRIPS,” Townhall, 6/8/2022
Philip Thompson, “Proposed Vaccine Deal: Ignoring the Constitution and Giving Away American Intellectual Property,” National Review, 6/6/2022
Andrei Iancu and David J. Kappos, “Team Biden ready to handle Russia and China vaccine technology — free of charge,” New York Post, 6/5/2022
David J. Kappos and Gary Locke, “A disastrous deal for public health,” New York Daily News, 6/2/2022
Thompson Ayodele, “Okonjo-Iweala: Triggering the next global health crisis,” PUNCH, 5/31/2022
Sally Pipes, “Biden’s Secret Vaxx Deal Threatens Medical Progress,” Newsmax.com 5/23/2022
Lamar Smith, “USTR Needs to Step Up Trade Enforcement,” IPWatchdog, 5/22/2022
Frank Samolis, “Why giving away COVID vaccine patents is a dangerous move,” Detroit News, 5/20/2022
Britain Eakin, “WTO Talks On Vaccine Patents Falter As Pandemic Surges,” Law360, 5/19/2022
James Pooley, “Threat to global innovation brewing at the WTO,” Boston Herald, 5/9/2022
Kenneth Thorpe, “To Protect Patients, First We Must Protect Patents,” RealClearPolicy, 3/30/2022
Paul Redmond Michel, “China’s formidable technology challenge,” Washington Times 3/17/2022
Joe Crowley, “Why Healthcare Infrastructure, Not Intellectual Property, Is Key To Defeating COVID,” International Business Times, 2/6/2022
Ed Royce and Ted Yoho, “America’s Leadership Strategy for Defeating COVID-19 and Preventing the Next Pandemic,” InsideSources, 12/15/2021
John Preston, “The Lifesaving Lessons of COVID-19,” InsideSources, 9/19/2021
Kenneth Thorpe, “Intellectual property rules enable vaccine innovation,” Buffalo News, 9/12/2021
Wolfgang Klietmann, “With one move, president threatens medical progress,” Boston Herald, 8/13/2021
Erik Paulsen, “We Can Save The World With Our Vaccines — Without Surrendering Our IP To China,” International Business Times, 7/3/2021
Lou Berneman, “If the government had swooped in, made-in-America COVID vaccines might not have happened,” Miami Herald, 6/28/2021
Howard Dean, “U.S. Should Give Global Vaccine Effort a Shot in the Arm,” Newsweek.com, 6/25/2021
Saul Anuzis, “Why Cancel Life-Saving Cures for Seniors?,” RealClearHealth 6/14/2021
Gaurav Gupta, “As Washington Ties Pharma’s Hands, China Is Leaping Ahead,” Barron’s, 6/11/2021
James Pooley, “Drawn-Out Negotiations Over Covid IP Will Blow Back on Biden,” Barron’s, 5/26/2021
David Kappos and Judge Paul Michel, “Waiving Covid-19 vaccine patents won’t get shots in arms faster. It slows down new vaccines.,” NBC News, 5/25/2021
Fred Reinhart, “America needs strong patent laws to keep inventing,” Boston Herald, 5/23/2021
Ron Klink, “Patent waivers won’t cure COVID-19,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 5/9/2021
Jon Soderstrom, “Patents don’t hamper access to drugs and vaccines,” Boston Herald, 4/26/2021
Colman Ragan, “Intellectual property drives medical innovations,” Buffalo News 4/25/2021
Adam Mossoff, “Waiving vaccine patents would imperil public health,” The Virginian-Pilot, 4/14/2021
Andrei Iancu, “No evidence that patents slow access to vaccines,” STAT, 4/13/2021
John Stanford, “Throwing Away Drug Patents Won’t Cure Anything,” InsideSources, 4/5/2021
Peter Pitts, “Gutting Patents Won’t Speed the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout,” IPWatchdog, 2/18/2021
James Pooley, “Covid Vaccine Shakedown at the WTO,” Wall Street Journal, 12/16/2020
Marc Busch, “United States needs IP protections to beat COVID-19,” The Washington Times, 12/3/2020