Failure to waive patent rights on the COVID patents is extremely risky. Intellectual property (IP) values are important. So is the safety of the world. In this case the law needs to understand itself better.
Germany’s letter of the law position on vaccine patents is very simplistic. The pandemic is still raging. Desperate people will do desperate things. Maybe even steal and copy vaccines.
If the conventional market respects patents, the black market doesn’t. There’s free money to be made with any sort of bootleg COVID vaccine. Countries like India and others can’t be too choosey.
Bootleg vaccines are likely to be of absolute rock bottom low quality. These things could be extremely dangerous, in fact. A lot of people could die using them.
The money laundering sector could do quite well out of this situation, too. Nothing like a nice new way of buying your own products from yourself to spread the joy a bit further. (To launder money, just create an endless stream of transactions all over the world. Easy to imagine that happening in this case.)
Don’t be too surprised if you see news saying COVID vaccines are the new black in funding organized crime, at least for a while. They will be, if they’re not easily accessible to the people who need them.
Crunch time is right here, right now
Brazil and India are at breaking point. Their health systems are hopelessly overloaded. If they don’t vaccinate, it’s game over. They’re being asked to manage impossible volumes of vaccinations with nothing. The sheer number of cases and vaccinations required is far beyond the EU and US numbers combined
Germany’s position simply can’t work. These huge countries aren’t going to just wait to become extinct, or bankrupt. They have to have access from somewhere, and soon. Time is the biggest enemy to controlling the pandemic.
Suggestion
Why not do a “qualified waiver” on the vaccine IP? It could be “until further notice” to allow protection of major components after the crisis is over. Ownership of IP is after all currently in place. Voluntary suspension would also send the right message. “IP is more important than literally billions of people” isn’t a good look. Worth a shot, wouldn’t you say?
