The Proposal:

In early October, India and South Africa had jointly proposed for a moratorium to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement that protects intellectual property and international trade, vis-a-vis the current pandemic. It was argued that the TRIPS agreement was going to delay an affordable access of COVID–19 related medical products and the R&D related to manufacturing and supply of the COVID–19 related products. The two countries called for a global solidarity for supporting the means to respond to COVID–19 rapidly. They argued that a waiver of the TRIPS treaty for a specific period of time can allow manufacturing of generic versions of the potential vaccine without violating any of the international trade rules by speeding up the collaboration among WTO member-states.

The Debate:

Many developed countries and a few developing countries were of an opinion that a solution can be found within the TRIPS agreement itself without having to waiver few provisions of the TRIPS agreement on COVID related products. They argued based on the following:

• Countries can resort to an alternative way such as compulsory licensing or government use of a patent without authorization of the proprietor.
• IP offices of Individual Countries may opt to undertake fastrack programs to speed up the granting of COVID related IP to facilitate dynamic trade landscape. For instance, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently initiated a Covid-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program.
• The opponents of the waiver pointed out that the Article 73 in the TRIPS agreement that refers to the security exceptions for member countries allowing exceptions to be considered for national security purposes. However, some entities have also resorted to “Open COVID pledge” in order to offer free licenses to others, thereby concluding that IP is not a stopper but a catalyst for finding the best solution for the pandemic.

Recently, 14 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have backed the India-South Africa proposal for TRIPS waiver citing the need to allow the sharing of technology, data, know-how, allowing generics manufacturers to contribute to increasing global availability, including through support for India and South Africa's proposal at the WTO. This waiver once implemented would provide a broad policy space for the WTO members to meet the needs of their constituents during the pandemic crisis.

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