College of Law, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC.
J Formos Med Assoc. 2022 Aug;121(8):1425-1430. doi: 10.1016/j.jfma.2021.10.004. Epub 2021 Oct 28.
As a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many intellectual property (IP) owners have signed on to the "Open COVID Pledge", an agreement that makes corporate and university IP available free of charge for the purpose of facilitating the development of technologies that will end the pandemic and minimize the impact of disease. Joining this pledge is relatively straightforward for already-disclosed IPs. However, few, if any, has considered how to encourage owners of "non-disclosed patent applications" and "trade secrets" to sign on to this meaningful pledge. In other words, so far there is no proposal to extend the Open COVID Pledge for confidential pending patents and trade secrets.
We propose an innovative and flexible framework to cover both non-disclosed patent applications and trade secrets to mobilize inventors to participate in the Open COVID Pledge.
By focusing on immediate publication of the patent-applying technology and extending provisional right to such applications which is subject to the Open Pledge during this pandemic, our recommendations are workable for inventors who would like to pledge their non-disclosed technologies for the detection, prevention and treatment of the COVID-19, in the meantime preserving their IP rights for the post-pledge period.
This paper offers a way forward to guide pledgers and implementers who are interested in supporting the effort by addressing some of the issues associated with the free sharing of non-disclosed patent applications and trade secrets in the fight against COVID-19.
由于 COVID-19 全球大流行，许多知识产权 (IP) 所有者签署了“开放 COVID 承诺”，该协议免费提供公司和大学的知识产权，以促进开发结束大流行和最大限度减少疾病影响的技术。对于已经公开的知识产权，加入该承诺相对简单。然而，很少有人考虑如何鼓励“未公开专利申请”和“商业秘密”的所有者签署这一有意义的承诺。换句话说，到目前为止，还没有提议将开放 COVID 承诺扩展到保密待决专利和商业秘密。
我们提出了一个创新和灵活的框架，涵盖未公开的专利申请和商业秘密，以动员发明人参与开放 COVID 承诺。
通过专注于立即公布申请专利的技术，并在大流行期间对这些申请延长临时权利，即遵守开放承诺，我们的建议适用于那些希望承诺其未公开技术用于 COVID-19 的检测、预防和治疗的发明人，同时为他们在承诺期后的知识产权保留权利。
本文提供了一种前进的方式，为有兴趣通过解决与 COVID-19 斗争中免费共享未公开专利申请和商业秘密相关的一些问题来支持努力的承诺方和执行者提供了指导。
