In the present scenario, COVID-19 has afflicted even more than one million people across the globe, and the number is increasing with every single passing day. However, long the crisis lasts, we are aware of the fact that scientists and others’ effort to share works towards the ultimate solution is crucial to ending it. The Open COVID Pledge is a project of an international coalition of technologists, scientists, and legal experts that looks forward to addressing the issue of the Coronavirus outbreak. The initiative or project proactively calls on universities, companies, and organizations to make their Intellectual Property (IP) freely available for a temporary period for use in ending the pandemic and further minimizing its overall impact. The objective is to strengthen cooperation for putting an end to the Coronavirus outbreak; institutions, business companies, and universities shall give free licenses of their copyright, patent and other forms of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) to anyone who is developing technologies for the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of COVID-19.
Quite recently, a consortium of organizations, including Mozilla, Creative Commons, and Intel – have joined the Open COVID Pledge to fight against COVID-19. The corresponding licenses in question are in effect from 1st December 2019 and shall last until a year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declares the pandemic to be over. Companies, organizations, and universities that pledge must adopt the Open COVID license, come up with a custom license that fulfills the complete intent of the pledge or identify the already existing licenses that achieve the pledge’s objective.
According to the director of the Stanford University program in law, science, and technology, Mark Lemley – the Open COVID Pledge is a project that looks forward to preventing the entrepreneurs and researchers from being sued for the innovations they create during the pandemic. He said that once things get back to normal, there is a hope that the companies and universities would work together to have commercially reasonable license terms in place; however, if they choose, they would be able to return to owning and asserting their IPRs as well. Lemley also stated that although the pledge has a model license that anyone can use, many universities and companies out there have their respective license terms and language as well, which is completely fine. Lemley believes all that matters is the fact the companies, organizations, and universities are committed to the pledge while implementing the same with their license terms.
The Open COVID Pledge, to date, has received expressions of support from various organizations, including the Idea Laboratory for Intellectual Property, Unified Patents, Fabricatorz Foundation, DLA Piper, the University of Utah S. J. Quinney College of Law, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, to name a few. Creative Commons has stated that it shall continue working with these organizations and other experts for creating a framework that enables the development of preventive solutions, treatment, and diagnostic tools, and possibly even a vaccine or cure for halting the spread of COVID-19. Intel has said that it will continue protecting its IP portfolio and also give free access to the scientists and researchers who are working diligently to protect people from this pandemic.