Plan popular – Biden’s seen as weak on IP to rivals and workers now – the plan reverses that

[Grover, 6/8/22, The Hill, “Biden’s push to undermine IP rights harms the US and helps Communist China”, ]

The Biden administration is partnering with global organizations and foreign countries on an agreement that will undermine the intellectual property (IP) of American businesses. This will both damage American workers and businesses and will be a giveaway to geopolitical rivals like Communist China and Russia.

Intellectual property is important to the American economy. It includes patents on inventions, copyrighted books and movies and computer software. The value added to new products is largely intellectual property and millions of jobs rely on it, so allowing other nations to steal it is economic suicide.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) will soon consider a proposal to “waive” or remove IP protections for COVID-19 vaccines that exist under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). If adopted, foreign countries would be permitted to seize the patents and clinical data belonging to American businesses.

This would set a dangerous precedent across the world that foreign countries can steal IP from Americans with the support of the United States government. This would threaten American innovation and the millions of high-paying jobs that depend on this manufacturing and would certainly undermine the development of vaccines and treatments for future deadly pandemics.