Jorge Contreras
Patent pledges are voluntary commitments made by patent holders without monetary compensation to refrain from asserting their patent rights to the fullest degree. Such pledges have been around for decades and appear in industries ranging from software to automotive to green tech to biotech (see earlier articles about patent pledges here, here and here).
In 2013, the Program for Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) at American University began to catalog and preserve patent pledges for future study and analysis. The database, which is publicly accessible and searchable, is maintained here.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, firms and institutions around the world have pledged patents and other intellectual property rights to assist with the pandemic response. These efforts include unilateral pledges such as those made by ventilator manufacturer Medtronic and vaccine maker Moderna as well as coordinated pledge efforts such as the Open COVID Pledge and the Japan-based Open COVID-19 Declaration.
The Patent Pledge Database has now been updated to include these recent commitments, bringing the total number of cataloged pledges to more than 300. Each database entry includes the name of the pledgor, the date of the pledge, a summary of the pledge terms, a description of the pledged patent assets, and a hyperlink to the pledgor’s statement. In addition, we have created PDF copies of all pledge statements to guard against their relocation, alteration and disappearance.
We hope that this free online resource continues to assist the research community.
