GOP senators introduce bill to protect vaccine manufacturers’ intellectual property rights

Accusing the Biden administration of opening the fruits of American vaccine development to abuse by foreign nations, United States Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and several Republican colleagues have introduced a bill to block the federal government from waiving intellectual property rights.

Through the No Free TRIPS Act (S.4063), Rubio, together with U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Mike Lee (R-UT), would bar the president from negotiating or deciding to withdraw, suspend, waive or modify the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) without explicit authorization from Congress.

“American companies worked at lightning speed to develop safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines,” Rubio said. “A TRIPS waiver would strip incentives for American drug manufacturers to step up when we need them to. This bill would protect the intellectual property of American companies and ensure that neither the Chinese Communist Party nor the Kremlin can claim American vaccines as their own.”

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has used and endorsed TRIPS waivers for decades as a means to aid health policy within the confines of the intellectual property system. Internationally, these waivers allow governments the right to grant compulsory licenses to make specific uses of patented inventions regardless of a patent holder’s consent, and has been used numerous times within the pharmaceutical field since 2001.

Supporters of the No Free TRIPS Act have now framed these waivers as a political attack on free market innovation.

“President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed proved the life-saving capabilities of the private sector, but for some reason the Democrats are on a mission to stop this innovation in its tracks,” Blackburn said. “I am leading the charge to stop Joe Biden’s plan to waive the intellectual property rights of vaccine manufacturers. Without the power of free market innovation, we will lose any chance we have at successfully managing another global public health crisis.”