As the world grapples with its response to COVID-19, the availability and nature of intellectual property protection afforded for diagnostic tests, treatments, vaccines, and accompanying data is likely to have a significant impact on whether and how that information is shared—and therefore necessarily will implicate the response time for containing the virus and resolving the pandemic. This article explores those available protections, and how they may enhance or impede innovation. This article also discusses several alternative approaches that could be used during these extraordinary times to incentivize swift collaboration while still protecting the financial interests of the innovators.
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