UAEM - Licensing and patenting practices of COVID-19 technologies

The request was successful.

Dear University of Aberdeen,

For the purpose of clarity, please adhere to the following definitions when answering these questions:

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,

Sarai Keestra

Foi, University of Aberdeen

Dear Sarai Keestra,
I refer to your email of 25 October and, on behalf of the University, I acknowledge receipt and confirm that your request is being dealt with in terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. In terms of the Act, a reply will be sent to you as soon as possible and within the statutory timescales.

Yours sincerely,
Mary Sabiston
Information Compliance Officer
University of Aberdeen

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Foi, University of Aberdeen

1 Attachment

Dear Sarai Keestra,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST FOI 2020-321

I refer to your email of 25 October 2020 requesting information relating to licensing and patenting practices of COVID-19 technologies.

Your request has now been considered under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, ‘the Act’.

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

No, we do not have any strategy documentation.

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.

No, we do not have a formal policy.

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

No, our licensing practices already consider humanitarian use.

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)

Please see the attached spreadsheet for the information you have requested.

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.

No patents have 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.

There are no plans at present.

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.

There are no plans at present.

Where we have indicated that no information is held, please accept this message as notice under section 17(1)(b) of the Act that the information is not held by the University.

Should you be dissatisfied with this response, you have the right to request a review. A request for review must be made within 40 working days of the receipt of this reply. It must include your name and address for correspondence and specify the request for information and the grounds for dissatisfaction with the decision. Please send your request for review to [University of Aberdeen request email].

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the University’s internal review, you have the right to appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner within six months of the receipt of the University’s review response. Details on how to make an appeal to the Commissioner are available at www.itspublicknowledge.info/Appeal. Should you be dissatisfied with the Commissioner’s decision, you have a right of appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law.

Yours sincerely,
Mary Sabiston
Information Compliance Officer
University of Aberdeen

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