WTO mulling intellectual property waivers for coronavirus vaccines

This comes amid growing pressure on rich nations to relax them as a way to help developing countries fight the pandemic.

Ambassadors from World Trade Organisation countries on Wednesday plan to discuss trade rules protecting the technological know-how behind COVID-19 vaccines amid growing pressure on rich nations to relax them as a way to help developing countries fight the pandemic.

The WTO's General Council was taking up a temporary waiver for intellectual property protections that South Africa and India first proposed in October. The idea has gained support in the developing world and among some progressive lawmakers in the West.

Authors of the proposal, which has faced resistance from many countries with influential pharmaceutical industries, have been revising it in hopes of making it more palatable.

No consensus -- which is required under WTO rules -- was expected to emerge from the ambassadors' two-day meeting on Wednesday and Thursday.

Co-sponsors of the waiver idea were shuttling between different diplomatic missions to make their case, according to a Geneva trade official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions. A deadlock persists, and the opposing sides remain far apart, the official said.

Some civil society groups expressed hope the proposal would be approved after US President Joe Biden's top trade official, Katherine Tai, said last month that gaping inequities in access to COVID-19 vaccines between developed and developing countries were "completely unacceptable, and that mistakes made in the global response to the HIV pandemic mustn't be repeated.

The argument, part of a long-running debate about intellectual property protections, centers on lifting patents, copyrights, and protection of industrial design and confidential information to help expand the production and deployment of vaccines during supply shortages. The aim is to suspend the rules for several years, just long enough to beat down the pandemic.

The issue has become more pressing with a surge in cases in India, the world's second-most populous country and a key producer of vaccines, including one based on Western technology.

Proponents, including the World Health Organization chief, note that such waivers are part of the WTO toolbox and insist there's no better time to use them than during a once-in-a-century pandemic that has taken 3.2 million lives, infected more than 437 million people and devastated economies across the globe.

Opponents say a waiver would be no panacea. They insist that production of COVID-19 vaccines is complex and simply can't be ramped up by easing intellectual property and say lifting protections could hurt future innovation.