Trade Secrecy and Covid 19

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2022

Abstract

Trade secrets and other IP rights have played a positive role in enabling the innovation, investment, and collaboration that has delivered Covid-19 vaccines in record time. They continue to enable mass manufacturing of vaccines at unprecedented levels by enabling collaboration, technology transfer, and continuing innovation. As we have documented, no innovator is going it alone, jealously refusing to share their knowledge. They are widely collaborating, working willingly with partners who are able to quickly meet the challenge of manufacturing sophisticated, novel products. The fact that these partnerships include competitors and require extensive technology transfer is telling. The TRIPS Waiver proposal would undermine innovation and collaboration, now and in the future. Its unprecedented proposal to allow countries to destroy trade secrets and require involuntary transfer of know-how would distract innovators from addressing this pandemic and chill future collaboration, investment, and innovation. The cost would be high, with little benefit. The producers with capacity to produce these novel vaccines (not just simple medicines or traditional vaccines) are already deployed. The private sector has spent large sums to address production bottlenecks, such as increasing the supply of plasmid DNA. While governments may consider future capacity, they would do best to consider how they could share and distribute the doses of vaccine they control with those around the world at the highest risk.

Publication Title

Geneva Network

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