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UAEM - Licensing and patenting practices of COVID-19 technologies

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Dear University of Edinburgh,

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,

Megan Boreham

Records Management, University of Edinburgh

Thank you for your email. The University’s working arrangements are
affected by the Coronavirus outbreak but we will respond to your enquiry
as soon as possible.

 

Information requests (freedom of information requests, environmental
information requests, data subject rights requests)

While we will make all efforts to respond to requests promptly, please be
aware that in some cases unfortunately we will not be able to respond
within statutory timescales. The [1]Scottish Information Commissioner’s
Office and the [2]Information Commissioner’s Office have both issued
statements about requests during the Covid-19 pandemic which you may find
helpful.

Please note that if you have only provided your first (or given) name in
the body of your email your request will not be valid.  To ensure your
request is valid and that the University is obliged to answer it, you must
provide your real name.  If you are making the request on behalf of
someone else you must provide their real name.  The Office of
the [3]Scottish Information Commissioner's guidance on this point explains
that if you do not provide your real name or the name of the person on
whose behalf you are making the request, you will lose your right to
appeal to the Commissioner should you be unhappy with the handling of your
request. The guidance also explains what constitutes a real name for the
purposes of making a request valid. Please refer to the guidance for
further details.

 

[4]The University of Edinburgh's request privacy notice, which describes
how we use the information you have supplied about yourself and your
request, is published on the University website.

 

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland,
with registration number SC005336.

References

Visible links
1. http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/home/...
2. https://ico.org.uk/
3. http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/Law/F...
4. https://www.ed.ac.uk/records-management/...

Records Management, University of Edinburgh

Dear Megan Boreham,

Thank you for your email of 24 October 2020 making a freedom of information request and your further email of 18 December 2020. As explained in our initial acknowledgement message, the University’s working arrangements are affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. We have therefore not been able to progress your request as quickly as we would have hoped, and were unable to respond within 20 working days. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to tell you exactly when you will receive a response to your request but we are working to respond as soon as possible.

I sincerely apologise for the delay in providing this response, and for any frustration this may have caused you. The University’s normal operations have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which means that we have been unable to reply as timeously as we would wish. Many University staff are working from home, without access to normal office facilities, while juggling childcare and other responsibilities. While we are ensuring that all requests receive a response, and are making all efforts to respond to requests promptly, unfortunately in some cases we are not currently able to respond to requests with statutory timeframes.

However, as we did not respond to your request within 20 working days, you do have the right to ask the University to conduct an internal review of the reasons for the delay. The Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance about this during the Covid-19 pandemic is available on their website. If you wish to submit a review request you should write to the Records Management Section (using this email address), describing the original request, explaining your grounds for dissatisfaction, and including an address for correspondence. When the review process has been completed, if you are still dissatisfied, you may use the Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance on making an appeal to make an appeal to the Commissioner.

However, please note that the legislation only allows requesters to make one internal review request in relation to a request. Therefore if you ask for an internal review now on the basis of our response being late, you will not be able to seek a further internal review if you are dissatisfied with the content of the response to your request and your next step will be to appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner as described above.

The University of Edinburgh's request privacy notice, which describes how we use the information you have supplied about yourself and your request, is published on the University website.

Yours sincerely

Records Management

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Records Management, University of Edinburgh

Dear Megan Boreham

Thank you for your email of 24 October 2020 requesting information about licensing and patents of health technologies.

As explained in our automatic reply message, the University’s working arrangements are affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to tell you exactly when you will receive a response to your request. However, I can confirm that it is actively being progressed and that we are making all efforts to respond to your request promptly. The Scottish Information Commissioner’s Office has issued a statement about requests during the Covid-19 pandemic which you may find helpful.

If you are unhappy with the way the University has handled your request, you do have the right to ask the University to conduct an internal review of the reasons for the delay. The Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance about this during the Covid-19 pandemic is available on their website. If you wish to submit a review request you should write to the Records Management Section (using this email address), describing the original request, explaining your grounds for dissatisfaction, and including an address for correspondence. When the review process is complete, if you are still dissatisfied, you may use the Scottish Information Commissioner’s guidance on making an appeal to make an appeal to the Commissioner.

The University of Edinburgh's request privacy notice, which describes how we use the information you have supplied about yourself and your request, is published on the University website.

Yours sincerely

Rob Don
Information Compliance Officer
Records Management Section
The University of Edinburgh | Old College | South Bridge | Edinburgh | EH8 9YL

Email: [University of Edinburgh request email]
Website: http://www.ed.ac.uk/records-management

show quoted sections

Records Management, University of Edinburgh

1 Attachment

Dear Megan Boreham

 

Thank you for your email of 24 October 2020 requesting information about
the licensing and patenting of Covid-19 related health technologies.
Please find our response attached. Please accept our apologies for the
delay to our response to your request.

The University of Edinburgh's privacy notice, which describes how we use
the information you have supplied about yourself and your request, is
available on-line at
[1]https://www.ed.ac.uk/records-management/....

Yours sincerely

 

 

Rob Don

Information Compliance Officer

Records Management Section

The University of Edinburgh | Old College | South Bridge | Edinburgh | EH8
9YL

 

Email: [University of Edinburgh request email]

Website: [2]http://www.ed.ac.uk/records-management

 

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland,
with registration number SC005336.

References

Visible links
1. https://www.ed.ac.uk/records-management/...
2. http://www.ed.ac.uk/records-management

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Megan Boreham please sign in and let everyone know.