Responding to the Push to Violate Vaccine Patents

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Ben Bayer interviews special guest Adam Mossoff, intellectual property expert and professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, about President Biden’s recent support for waiving overseas patent protection for the Covid-19 vaccines developed by companies like Pfizer and Moderna.

Among the topics covered:

The Biden administration’s proposals to waive Covid vaccine patent protection by international institutions;
Why intellectual property has only encouraged the development and distribution of medical technology and how this is the function of intellectual property;
The likely consequences of waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines;
How intellectual property rights made possible the creation of the Covid vaccines and treatments;
Why intellectual property rights are not fundamentally justified by their contribution to the “public good” but by the principle of individual rights;
Whether the government acquires rights to intellectual property by investing in the development of innovations;
Whether Section 1498 of the U.S. Code allows for government to exercise eminent domain over vaccine patents;
Whether intellectual property rights allow pharmaceutical companies to profit from the spread of disease;
Changes to the legal system and trade policy that would allow better production and distribution of the vaccines overseas;
How a biological product can be considered intellectual property;
The role of intellectual property in the development of a malaria vaccine and other mRNA vaccines.

Mentioned in the discussion are Ayn Rand’s essay “Patents and Copyrights,” Adam Mossoff’s article “Waiving Vaccine Patents Would Imperil Public Health,” and Ben Bayer’s article “The Unscientific, Un-American Ethics of Vaccine Distribution.”

This podcast was recorded on May 12, 2021. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.