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A Patent Waiver That Never Was: Where Do We Go from Here?

After nearly two years of intense negotiations, member states of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) has finally agreed on a deal that waives patents and
other intellectual property rights (IPRs) on Covid-19 vaccines. However, the
highly restrictive deal – “at best, a distant cousin of the original proposal”1
that sought a full waiver of protections on patents, trade secrets, copyrights
and industrial designs on not only vaccines but also diagnostics and
therapeutics – is unlikely to boost global vaccine production and equity. This
briefly argues that while Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) should
endeavor to utilize the WTO’s tokenish waiver, the campaign continues for
a meaningful pathway to global equity in access to COVID-19 vaccines and
other pandemic response tools.