G20 Leaders Issue Declaration Calling for Voluntary Licensing of Vaccine Patents

In a declaration released Friday following the G20 Global Health Summit in Rome, world leaders called for voluntary patent licensing and technology transfers for COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.

In the declaration, the G20 said it recognizes “the use of tools, such as voluntary licensing agreements of intellectual property, voluntary technology and know-how transfers, and patent pooling on mutually-agreed terms.” It also called for working consistently within the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), the World Trade Organization’s mechanism for protecting intellectual property (IP).

The group did not reach a consensus on a controversial proposal introduced last year by South Africa and India seeking a temporary waiving of intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, which was recently endorsed by the Biden administration and would in effect require the vaccine-makers to share their know-how (DID, May 6).

However, the EU, which co-hosted the global summit with Italy, promised to submit a proposal ahead of the next TRIPS meeting to clarify when compulsory licenses can be used.

The bottom line is that for the most part, vaccine-makers have indicated that they’re not willing to share their vaccine technology voluntarily. And the world’s developed economies, where these vaccine-makers are based, are reluctant to force them to do so — whether through compulsory licensing or IP waivers. However, these nations are confronting a global health crisis and realize they can’t just do nothing.

“We all know, voluntary licensing is the best way to ensure the necessary transfer of technology and know-how, together with IP rights,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who presided over the summit. “But the existing TRIPS agreement and the 2001 Doha Declaration already today foresee compulsory licensing as a perfectly legitimate tool for governments to use in a crisis.”

The next TRIPS meeting is scheduled for June 8-9.

Read the G20 Rome Declaration here: www.fdanews.com/05-21-21-RomeDeclaration.pdf. ― Jason Scott