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In a sharp reversal of past policy, President Biden last week (May 5) came out in favor of a World Trade Organization proposal that would waive certain intellectual property protections around COVID-19 vaccines. The move, meant to boost the production of vaccines and address issues of inequity in their distribution, would reveal proprietary information held by companies designing the shots, although some proponents wonder whether the waiver is enough.
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, says in a statement. “The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”
The proposal at the center of the argument was submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) last fall by India and South Africa, two countries ...
