Ex-Patent, Commerce Officials Ask Biden to Skip Covid IP Waiver

Former Department of Commerce and US Patent and Trademark Office officials urged President Joe Biden to oppose a World Trade Organization proposal that could waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 therapeutics and diagnostics.

“Needlessly waiving intellectual property rights for life-saving treatments would do nothing” to resolve barriers to access of Covid-19 treatments in the developing world, the advocacy group Council for Innovation Promotion said in a Dec. 4 letter to Biden.

Such a waiver would stifle innovation and undermine public health, the letter argued, because companies like Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. wouldn’t spend billions of dollars on the research ...