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An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study
This article posits that Australia, as an affluent country with increasing capacity to manufacture vaccines, has an obligation to assist its regional (and global) counterparts in implementing vaccination programs that protect their populations. First, the article explores the capacity of high-income...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9278044/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35855401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsac020 |
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author | Scheibner, James Nielsen, Jane Nicol, Dianne |
author_facet | Scheibner, James Nielsen, Jane Nicol, Dianne |
author_sort | Scheibner, James |
collection | PubMed |
description | This article posits that Australia, as an affluent country with increasing capacity to manufacture vaccines, has an obligation to assist its regional (and global) counterparts in implementing vaccination programs that protect their populations. First, the article explores the capacity of high-income nations to meet their obligations, assist their neighbours and refrain from vaccine nationalism. This inquiry involves an analysis of the optimal ethical strategy for distributing vaccines globally, and the role that Australia might play in this distribution strategy. Secondly, the article examines the intellectual property landscape for vaccines in Australia, focusing on the patents that cover vaccine compositions and manufacturing techniques (recognizing the potential for know-how and access to materials as well as patents to affect manufacturing capacity). This article then discusses the strategies the Australian Government has at its disposal to counter potential intellectual property impediments whilst complying with existing obligations under the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), as an ethically appropriate response to the pandemic. This article also considers whether a so-called TRIPS waiver could provide better options and concludes that the challenge of compelling disclosure of know-how remains. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9278044 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-92780442022-07-18 An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study Scheibner, James Nielsen, Jane Nicol, Dianne J Law Biosci Original Article This article posits that Australia, as an affluent country with increasing capacity to manufacture vaccines, has an obligation to assist its regional (and global) counterparts in implementing vaccination programs that protect their populations. First, the article explores the capacity of high-income nations to meet their obligations, assist their neighbours and refrain from vaccine nationalism. This inquiry involves an analysis of the optimal ethical strategy for distributing vaccines globally, and the role that Australia might play in this distribution strategy. Secondly, the article examines the intellectual property landscape for vaccines in Australia, focusing on the patents that cover vaccine compositions and manufacturing techniques (recognizing the potential for know-how and access to materials as well as patents to affect manufacturing capacity). This article then discusses the strategies the Australian Government has at its disposal to counter potential intellectual property impediments whilst complying with existing obligations under the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), as an ethically appropriate response to the pandemic. This article also considers whether a so-called TRIPS waiver could provide better options and concludes that the challenge of compelling disclosure of know-how remains. Oxford University Press 2022-07-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9278044/ /pubmed/35855401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsac020 Text en © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Duke University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Oxford University Press, and Stanford Law School. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com |
spellingShingle | Original Article Scheibner, James Nielsen, Jane Nicol, Dianne An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study |
title | An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study |
title_full | An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study |
title_fullStr | An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study |
title_full_unstemmed | An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study |
title_short | An ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on COVID-19 vaccine distribution: an Australian case study |
title_sort | ethico-legal assessment of intellectual property rights and their effect on covid-19 vaccine distribution: an australian case study |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9278044/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35855401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsac020 |
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