The Waiver of Patent Protections for COVID-19 Vaccines During the Ongoing Pandemic and the Conspiracy Theories: Lights and Shadows of an Issue on the Ground

Vaccines against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) currently constitute the main hope for the fight against the ongoing pandemic. Mass immunization against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) should be considered as a global battle in which no country can be left behind, in particular the low-income countries. This last aspect may, in fact, favor the uncontrolled replication of the virus with the insurge of new variants. One of the possible solutions to limit this problem is the waiver of patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines. On 2 October 2020, India and South Africa asked the World Trade Organization (WTO) to allow all countries to choose to neither grant nor enforce patents and other intellectual property (IP) related to COVID-19 drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other technologies for the duration of the pandemic, until global herd immunity is achieved. On 5 May 2021, the United States (US) administration announced the willingness to liberalize intellectual property concerning the COVID-19 vaccines (1, 2). Although this issue is very interesting, its feasibility is particularly complex and intricate. Accordingly, there are discordant opinions among scholars and physicians on the real usefulness of patent liberalization (3–6). It has been suggested that an exception be made to the agreements establishing the World Trade Organization, in particular The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. This request would be based on the theory according to which the vaccines against the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) during a pandemic should be considered as a “common good”, similarly to water, or air. According to the Economic Theory of the Commons, which is supported by Elinor Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel prize in Economics, the aforementioned terms should be considered in the Roman category of “res communes omnium”, meaning not appropriable and precluded from legal trade (7, 8). From a practical point of view, the suspension of patent protections would limit the business models for the legitimate producers of COVID-19 vaccines. Among the potential strategies to encourage the waiver of patent protections it is possible to include: the direct donation of vaccines from the high-income countries, the reduction of the costs of the production lines, the shortening of the duration of patent protections, and a series of preferential patent waivers to countries that manufacture a large fraction of the global vaccines (e.g., India). One of the further possible solutions is represented by the solidarity by several governments or other agencies. This strategy is pursued, for example, by the program for COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX). The latter is supported by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and the World Health Organization (WHO) (9, 10).