“IP attorneys doubt patent waivers solution to global need for COVID vaccine”

Partner Peter Lando spoke to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly about the Biden Administration’s announcement to support waiving IP protection for COVID vaccines:

“Boston IP attorney Peter C. Lando agrees, calling the signals from the Biden administration “largely a symbolic move” — and a counterintuitive one.

“It’s really quite the opposite of what should be the answer,” he says. “The support for intellectual property and the incentives that it provides is what led to the development of the vaccines and the other therapies that we’ve all benefited from.”

Lando notes that the Biden administration’s announcement — perhaps designed to gin up the requisite unanimity among members of the World Trade Organization — has instead met with resistance, most notably from leaders in Germany and France.

Lando found the administration’s move particularly disappointing due to the apparent political calculus that was made to jump at an idea suggested by a segment of the Democrat Party rather than a serious solution to the problem.

“It’s without teeth, and it’s not going to result in anything,” Lando says. “It might have been better for them to say, ‘I hear you, [but] that’s not the solution’ and educate people about what the solutions might be.””

Read the full article on Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.