Saudi Arabia has affirmed its support for the joint international efforts through the World Trade Organization to facilitate access to Covid-19 vaccines in compliance with intellectual property rights and relevant international treaties.
The Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP), confirmed that this comes in light of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's efforts to combat the Coronavirus pandemic and support international efforts to address its challenges by reducing thereof and achieving people interest in obtaining Covid-19 vaccines to safe humanity at this critical time.
SAIP indicated that among the most prominent of these efforts are the following:
1- The Kingdom's affirmation of its commitment to international treaties and agreements related to intellectual property, particularly the Agreement on Trade Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights "TRIPS" administered by the World Trade Organization, which the Kingdom joined in 2005.
2- Publishing the Implementing Rules for Compulsory Licensing of Patents in accordance with the National Law of Patent, Layout Designs for Integrated Circuits, Plant Varieties, and Industrial Designs.
3- The Kingdom's great interest in supporting the initiative of the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), which was launched by the World Health Organization with participation of multiple countries with the aim of sharing know-how of the development of Covid-19 related medicines, vaccines and diagnostics.
4- The Kingdom called at the meeting of the TRIPS Council held in Geneva on April 30,2021, that the international community must bear the responsibility to overcome this pandemic by making vaccines available at reasonable price, ensuring that intellectual property is not an obstacle to promote the production of vaccines for non-commercial purposes and ensuring equitable access thereto worldwide. The Kingdom urged the country members to move forward with the existing negotiations on waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines and to reach consensus as soon as possible. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia also urged the vaccine manufacturing country members to facilitate technology transfer to countries wishing to manufacture their vaccines. 5- The Kingdom allocated $500 millions to meet the global needs for the development and distribution of vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tools related to COVID-19, and contributed $150 millions to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), $150 millions to the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI), and $200 million to organizations and other international and regional health programs.
