What is the wavier of patents?

Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

The US is proposing to waive the COVID-related intellectual property or patents.

In general, if you have a patent, you can enjoy monopoly use of the invention described in the patent. In other words, no one can use the invention in your patents unless your permission: most of the time, you will collect a license fee from those who wish to use your patents. The license fee is also called royalty-free.

The privilege that patents have comes from the effort and cost invested to create new inventions. If everyone can copy your invention without your approval, no one wants to invest their time, money, or effort to develop new inventions.

Going back to the news now, if the US waives the patents relating to COVID, some developing counties can obtain the affordable vaccine sooner and the pandemic may ease sooner. 

But it also means that it undermines the benefit of big pharmacy companies. 

This is not a new issue. The monopoly of patents relating to medicines has discussed how to balance to save lives in the developing countries where it is difficult to buy expensive medicine and to generate a decent revenue of the medical company.

Let us see what WHO and big pharmacy companies respond to the US proposal.