Joshua Sarnoff
DePaul University
As the world confronts the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the WTO’s TRIPS Council has rejected the proposal by India and South Africa for the WTO to temporarily waive the intellectual property rights requirements of the TRIPS Agreement in regard to copyrights, industrial designs, patents, and trade secrets. Notwithstanding, countries will continue to exercise TRIPS flexibilities in regard to IPRs that affect their ability to respond to COVID-19.
One of the most important flexibilities, particularly as it does not require extensive administrative efforts to issue compulsory licenses, will be the power of judges to deny injunctive relief. A discussion of TRIPS Flexibilities on Patent Enforcement: Lessons from Some Developed Countries Relating to Pharmaceutical Patent Protection, [South Centre Research Paper 119 (October 2020)], is available here.
