UAEM - Licensing and patenting practices of COVID-19 technologies

The request was successful.

Dear Imperial College London,

For the purpose of clarity, please adhere to the following definitions when answering these questions:
Definitions
Low and middle income country: A country that is defined as ‘low’, ‘lower-middle’ and ‘upper-middle’ income by the World Bank for the year 2018. Income status defined by GNI per capita.
Source: World bank, available online [https://tinyurl.com/y5dwc2qv]
A patent grants an inventor the exclusive rights to his or her invention. A patent holder can stop other people from selling, manufacturing, producing, or using the invention for a certain period of time.
Source: Upcouncil, available online [https://www.upcounsel.com/what-is-a-pate...
Licence: Permission for the licensee to use the intellectual property rights
Source: TaylorWessing, available online [https://www.taylorwessing.com/download/a...
Exclusive Licence: A licence that allows only the named licensee to exploit the relevant IP rights, the licensor is also excluded from exploiting these IP rights.
Non-Exclusive Licence: A licence that grants any number of licensees to exploit the IP.
Source: TaylorWessing, available online [https://www.taylorwessing.com/synapse/co...
Health Technology: ‘Health technology as defined by the WHO: “A health technology is the application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives.’
Source: WHO, available online [https://www.who.int/health-technology-as...
START FOI request:
Q1. Can you release your internal strategy regarding licensing and patenting of COVID-19 related health technologies?
Q2. Does the institution have a formal policy on licensing and patenting of COVID-19 related technologies? If yes, please provide a link or PDF to the relevant policy document.
Q3. Has the university considered updating their strategy regarding the licensing and patenting of health technologies since the start of the pandemic?
Q4. Please provide an Excel spreadsheet with headings as displayed below with all the COVID-19 related health technologies LICENSED by the university AND specify which countries they were licensed in AND specify whether they are exclusive or non-exclusive licenses.
Health Technology Licensed | Country of Licensing | Type of License (Exclusive or Non-Exclusive)
Q5. Please provide a list of patents granted to your organization for any COVID-19 related health technologies listed by patent family, indicating countries/regions in which the patent has been granted.

Q6. Does the institution have any plans on signing up to the Open-COVID pledge (https://opencovidpledge.org/) or any similar initiative that seeks to minimise intellectual property rights barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic? If yes, please specify.

Q7. Is the institution considering the licensing of COVID-19 related health technologies to the Covid Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) or the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) during the pandemic? If yes, please specify.

END FOI request.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by email.

Yours faithfully,

Florence Rodgers
UAEM UK Representative

IMPFOI, Imperial College London

Dear Ms Rodgers,

This is to acknowledge receipt of your request below, made under the
Freedom of Information Act. The College will respond to your request by 25
November.

Yours,

Freedom of Information Team

[1]Imperial College London 

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IMPFOI, Imperial College London

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Dear Ms Rodgers,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information Act request. We have copied your
queries and answered them below and in the attached spreadsheet.

Q1. Can you release your internal strategy regarding licensing and
patenting of COVID-19 related health technologies?

Strategies for licencing and patenting of COVID-19 related health
technologies are specific to each technology.

Q2. Does the institution have a formal policy on licensing and patenting
of COVID-19 related technologies?  If yes, please provide a link or PDF to
the relevant policy document.

Licensing and patenting of COVID-19 related technologies is in line with
College’s usual business practices.

Q3. Has the university considered updating their strategy regarding the
licensing and patenting of health technologies since the start of the
pandemic?

Updates to licensing and patenting strategies at College regularly occur
as part of continuous improvement initiatives.

Q4. Please provide an Excel spreadsheet with headings as displayed below
with all the COVID-19 related health technologies LICENSED by the
university AND specify which countries they were licensed in AND specify
whether they are exclusive or non-exclusive licenses.

See attached spreadsheet, Covid Deals tab.

Q5. Please provide a list of patents granted to your organization for any
COVID-19 related health technologies listed by patent family, indicating
countries/regions in which the patent has been granted.

See attached spreadsheet, Granted patents tab.

Q6. Does the institution have any plans on signing up to the Open-COVID
pledge ([1]https://opencovidpledge.org/) or any similar initiative that
seeks to minimise intellectual property rights barriers during the
COVID-19 pandemic? If yes, please specify.

This is a question and not a request for recorded information held by the
College. As the [2]Information Commissioner’s guidance states, while a
request may be phrased in the form of a question, “the authority does not
have to answer your question if this would mean creating new information
or giving an opinion or judgment that is not already recorded”. 

Q7. Is the institution considering the licensing of COVID-19 related
health technologies to the Covid Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) or the
Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) during the pandemic? If yes, please specify.

This is a question and not a request for recorded information held by the
College.

If you are unhappy with the way that we have handled your request, you can
ask us to conduct a review. Please make your representation in writing
within 40 days of the date you received this response. If you remain
dissatisfied with how Imperial College has handled your request, you may
then approach the [3]Information Commissioner’s Office.   

Yours,

Freedom of Information Team

[4]Imperial College London 

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