Prof. Sean Flynn Quoted in Law 360 Story on the Proposed TRIPS Waiver for COVID-19
February 21, 2022
PIJIP Director Sean Flynn was quoted Friday in a Law 360 article on a compromise that has been reached in negotiations over a proposed TRIPS Waiver to fight COVID-19. The waiver, proposed by India and South Africa in 2020, would allowed WTO members to suspend certain obligations on the protection of intellectual property for all technologies relevant to fight the pandemic. Since then, countries have been negotiating on the terms of such a waiver, and last week a compromise version of the waiver (focused on patents and data exclusivity for vaccines) leaked to the press. It was later announced by USTR.
PIJIP Director Sean Flynn was quoted in a Law 360 article on the compromise:
"Researchers and access to knowledge organizations asked for the waiver to apply to all intellectual property because the tools needed to make vaccines are often subject to copyright, trade secrets and other forms of intellectual property — not just patents," American University Washington College of Law professor Sean Flynn said in a statement. "The algorithms needed to make mRNA vaccines for example could be protected by copyrights. ... Modern ventilators, for example, require the use of proprietary software and copyrighted manuals to repair."
For more on the proposed TRIPS waiver compromise, see