IPACST active in addressing IP issues for COVID-19

Posted by Viola Prifti on

The coronavirus outbreak has undoubtedly disrupted our lives and redimensioned our priorities. Research is also feeling the consequences. As academics, it is our moral duty to redirect our work to current societal concerns. Our IPACST team has tried to work in this direction. Some activities are:

  1. The OpenCovidPledge. Frank Tietze, our team member at the University of Cambridge, is one of the initiators of the pledge together with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, Stanford University, and Berkley University. For more information see https://opencovidpledge.org/
  2. Frank also wrote an article on using IP in the fight against the virus https://medium.com/@frank.tietze/lets-avoid-that-ip-gets-in-the-way-of-fighting-the-coronavirus-covid19-pandemic-84c01392e2c8 and a blog post on “Why intellectual property needs urgent attention from policy makers during the Covid-19 pandemic – Insights from the IPACST project” for the Transitions to Sustainability website.
  3. Viola Prifti, team member at the HTW Berlin, gave a guest talk on “Post-Covid 19 – Looking at Smart Farming for a More Sustainable Future” for the “Law, Emerging Tech & Science” Lab, School of Law & Criminology at the University of Greenwich. The talk will be followed by a short written piece with her former colleague, Dr. Argyro Karanasiou, director of the LETS Lab.
  4.  Prof Anjula Gurtoo, our team member at the Indian Institute of Science – Bangalore in India also initiated a publication series on a range of policy issues related to sustainability and the Covid-19 crisis.  Articles in this series are (1) “Realigning Sustainability in the Post-pandemic World” by Anjula Gurtoo & Rahul Patil; (2) “Effective public health data sharing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic” by Anjula Gurtoo & Inder S. Gopal; “Will the Covid-19 pandemic change the IP domain for the better?” by Anjula Gurtoo & Rahul Patil.
  5. Frank Tietze, IPACST principle investigator at the University of Cambridge, has been invited to give a talk “Unpacking intellectual property challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic” at a Cambridge Network event.
  6. Frank Tietze and Pratheeba Vimalnath, our team members in Cambridge, have recently published an article together with other researchers in Cambridge, on “Crisis-Critical Intellectual Property: Findings From the COVID-19 Pandemic“.
  7. Anjula Gurtoo & Rahul Patil, our team members in Bangalore, wrote a brief on “When a Covid-19 Vaccine is discovered, will it be freely available and be affordable to all?”.