With the Epidemic Protection Act of March 27, 2020, Germany declared an “emergency of national dimension” in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, tensions and international pressure to “abrogate certain IP rights” increased. In addition to the Federal Republic of Germany, there are numerous other countries around the world that, in principle, can make use of emergency decrees to fundamentally restrict patent rights, such as in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, China, Japan and Korea. However, up to now, in the summer of 2021, neither an order for use (Section 13 PatG) nor – according to current knowledge – an action for a compulsory license (Section 24 PatG) has been brought before the courts responsible for this. The demand to be met is enormous, especially for vaccine developments that have been described as “game changers”.
The following download pdf summarize why this is so – despite numerous and strongly debated demands.
