VIDEO: The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare many intellectual property law challenges

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare many intellectual property law challenges. The dominant focus has been on patents and related rights, but little attention has been paid to trade secrets (i.e., information that is valuable because it is not know by competitors). Trade secrets pervade the development of Covid diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines, from vaccine manufacturing processes to research data. While trade secrecy may be justified, it comes at an enormous cost to affordability of life saving medicines and vaccines, as well as their access and efficacy, because trade secrecy hinders knowledge diffusion. Elon Law Professor and Stanford Center for Internet and Society Affiliate Scholar David S. Levine will discuss the role of trade secrecy in the fight against Covid, and why the time is now to re-examine trade secrecy’s specific impact on how we address a global health crisis. What can we do now, and what should we do to prepare for the next pandemic?