Intellectual Property Rights and Access in Crisis

Karen Walsh; Andrea Wallace; Mathilde Pavis; Natalie Olszowy; James Griffin; Naomi Hawkins

摘要

The importance of access to intellectual property rights (IPR) protected subject-matter in two crucial areas - public health, and educational and cultural engagement - has been extensively demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although they involve separate legal areas, patent and copyright, the common thread linking the two is intellectual property's difficult relationship with access in the public interest. This paper examines the tensions caused by access barriers, the tools used to reduce them and their effectiveness. It is clear that the access barriers magnified by COVID-19 are not restricted to narrow or specific contexts but are widespread. They are created by, and are a feature of, our existing IPR frameworks. Open movements provide limited remedies because they are not designed to, nor can adequately address the wide range of access barriers necessary to promote the public interest. Existing legislative mechanisms designed to remove access barriers similarly fail to effectively remedy access needs. These existing options are premised on the assumption that there is a singular "public" motivated by homogenous "interests", which fails to reflect the plurality and cross-border reality of the pub-lic(s) interest(s) underpinning the welfare goals of IPR. We conclude that a systemic re-evaluation is required and call for positive and equitable legal measures protective of the public(s) interest(s) to be built within IPR frameworks that also address non-IPR barriers. The current pandemic and development of a "new normal" provides a crucial opportunity to comprehensively consider the public(s) in-terest(s), not just during a global health crisis, but on an ongoing basis.

机译：在两个至关重要的区域 - 公共卫生和教育和文化参与中获得知识产权（知识产权）受保护主题的重要性 - 在Covid-19大流行期间被广泛证明了教育和文化参与。虽然它们涉及单独的法律领域，专利和版权，但连续两者的共同线程是知识产权与公共利益的访问困难关系。本文研究了访问障碍引起的紧张局势，用于减少它们的工具及其有效性。很明显，Covid-19放大的接入屏障不限于狭窄或特定的背景，但普遍存在。它们是由我们现有的知识产权框架的特征创建的。开放式动作提供有限的补救措施，因为它们不是设计，也不能充分解决促进公共利益所需的广泛访问障碍。旨在删除访问障碍的现有立法机制同样无法有效地解决访问需求。这些现有的选择是假设有一个奇异的“兴趣”的奇异“公共”，这未能反映出资本的多个和跨境现实，支持福利目标知识产权。我们得出结论，需要一个系统性重新评估，并呼吁在IPR框架内建立的公共框架内的积极和公平的法律措施保护，该框架也涉及非知识产权障碍。目前的大流行和发展“新的正常”提供了一个关键的机会，以全面地考虑公众，而不仅仅是在全球健康危机中，而且在持续的基础上。

Intellectual Property Rights and Access in Crisis

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