WIPO REPORT

WIPO REPORT

Topic: IR

Section: International organization

Context: According to a recent report “Patent Landscape Report” on Covid-related vaccines and therapeutics from WIPO, extraordinarily active patent filing activity happened during Pandemic.

Concept:

• The report comes amidst international negotiations for a temporary IP waiver on Covid-linked products, including vaccines, to facilitate greater access to these products. E.g., IP waiver proposal initiated by India and South Africa at the WTO in 2020.
• The report says, from 1941 to 2011, there were just over 500 patent filings related to active ingredients about the influenza vaccines. (WIPO 2012)
• Even during the SARS outbreak, fewer than 1,000 related patents were published, with no vaccine candidate emerging.
• However, in the first 21 months of the pandemic, close to 5,300patent applications relating to Covid were filed across 49 patent offices. This included nearly 1,500 filings related to therapeutics and over 400 filings related to vaccines.
• The regulatory authorities also paved the way for speedy approvals for patent applications related to Covid as compared to chemistry and bioscience in the same period.
• Moreover, greatest number of Covid patent filings were related to conventional vaccine technologies and repurposed drugs, followed by more-novel vaccine technologies like
• Universities and research organisations have filed (44%) nearly as many patent applications as corporations (49%) for Covid vaccines.
• Among the top 10 applicants for vaccines were China, the US, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, Republic of Korea, Germany, India, Austria, Switzerland and Australia.
• China, the US and India were the top origins for therapeutics.
• India and the Republic of Korea saw higher filing activity for therapeutics than vaccines.

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