Free Access to Intellectual Property is Crucial in Mitigating The COVID-19 Pandemic; News18, April 9, 2020

Simantini Dey, News18; Free Access to Intellectual Property is Crucial in Mitigating The COVID-19 Pandemic

"Furthermore, sharing intellectual property among members of academia is also important, so that the invention of a working vaccine can be accelerated, and more can be discovered about this potent virus. 

To ensure such co-operation, a group of scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and individuals have come together and started the 'Open COVID pledge' initiative. The organisations, institutions and universities who take the 'Open COVID Pledge' will voluntarily make the commitment of sharing their Intellectual Property related to COVID-19, thereby reducing information barrier. 

So far, Intel, Mozilla and Creative Commons have publically taken the Open COVID pledge. Harvard, MIT and Stanford have also agreed to this initiative. The University of Utah (Centre for Law and Biological Sciences), and Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital are among some of the other institutions that have endorsed the pledge.

The current global healthcare crisis has brought to sharp focus the need to review patent laws of pharmaceutical products and how it should be reframed in case of a pandemic, or epidemic in future."