Kovac Mitja, Rakovec Lana
Department of Management and Organization, School of Economics and Business University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia.
J World Intellect Prop. 2022 Mar 31. doi: 10.1111/jwip.12223.
Continents are facing an apocalyptic pandemic that is terribly dangerous for millions of their inhabitants. This paper seeks to address the role of intellectual property (IP) law in addressing the problem of the COVID-19 pandemic. We suggest that the current international IP law regime and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement are not insurmountable obstacles for access to a successful COVID-19 vaccine. The publicly advocated fundamental reform or even abolition of the present IP law regime under serious information asymmetries might be counterproductive and distortive. Via existing compulsory licensing, advance purchase agreements and the employment of patent-pools, research subsidies, reward mechanisms and reputational sanctions, governments can take the steps needed to effectively overcome any IP-associated barriers to access to crucial medicines/vaccines, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the current wave of medical research on COVID-19 suggests the previous vaccine R&D 'failures' were driven by the modest demand for such vaccines and were not due to an inadequate IP-incentive stream. The paper also suggests today's EU competition law rules on the horizontal exchange of information could be seen as an impediment to innovation and thus be temporary suspended.
各大洲正面临一场对数百万居民极为危险的灾难性大流行病。本文旨在探讨知识产权法在应对新冠疫情问题中所起的作用。我们认为，当前的国际知识产权法律制度以及《与贸易有关的知识产权协定》并非获取成功的新冠疫苗的不可逾越的障碍。在严重信息不对称的情况下公开主张对现行知识产权法律制度进行根本性改革甚至废除，可能会适得其反并造成扭曲。通过现有的强制许可、预购协议以及利用专利池、研究补贴、奖励机制和声誉制裁，各国政府能够采取必要措施，有效克服获取关键药品/疫苗过程中与知识产权相关的任何障碍，尤其是在新冠疫情期间。此外，当前这一波关于新冠病毒的医学研究表明，此前疫苗研发的“失败”是由对此类疫苗的需求不高所致，而非知识产权激励不足。本文还指出，当今欧盟关于横向信息交流的竞争法规则可能被视为创新的障碍，因此可暂时中止。
