코로나19 관련 지식재산권 보호의무 면제 논의 및 법적이슈에 대한 소고

While the COVID-19 pandemic situation continues, there has been an international discussion about waiver from intellectual property rights protection obligations for COVID-19 vaccines. Since some countries submitted a proposal to the WTO/TRIPS Committee requesting that the IPR obligations related to COVID-19 be waived, there are arguments for and against it. The rationale for the argument in favor is that the protection of intellectual property rights, the exclusive right, should be suspended for a while to expand the production and equitable supply of COVID-19 vaccines, etc. The rationale for the objection is that if intellectual property rights are not protected, the development of new technologies will be reduced and the production of vaccines with guaranteed stability and quality will not be of any help. In this article, the WTO/TRIPS proposal for the protection of intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 that has sparked such discussions and the related issues are analyzed legally. I also mentioned the direction of international discussions regarding intellectual property rights for the production of vaccines with guaranteed stability and quality.