The US administration and the Europe Union support a World Health Organization plan to empower producers in low- and middle-income countries to develop and manufacture mRNA vaccines. Corporations in the global North do not, arguing that exports from rich countries to poor ones rather than patent waivers can tackle vaccine inequities and reduce the threat from new waves of COVID infection.
To the surprise of many, the US administration came out in favor of the WHO proposal, almost immediately declaring support for COVID-19 patent waivers. The United States, working with the European Union, South Africa and India — collectively, ‘the Quad’ — proposed revisions to World Trade Organization agreements as a mechanism for delivering access to the proposed technologies.
However, a flaw sits at the core of the industry mantra that innovation depends on patents. The opposite is true: patents depend on innovation. The kind of time-limited monopoly that patents provide is only granted to inventors once they demonstrate utility and novelty. Innovation therefore stems not from patents but from curiosity and the search for new knowledge, a search that may or may not be driven by desires to solve a particular problem and improve how the world works.