Former USPTO Director and C4IP Co-Chair David Kappos is sounding the alarm on an emerging international threat to American innovation: the growing push to strip U.S. companies of their intellectual property rights.
In a new IAM op-ed, Kappos highlights efforts by global institutions like the WTO and WHO to weaken IP protections — first by waiving patents for COVID-19 vaccines, and now through a proposed pandemic treaty that could force U.S. firms to surrender patents and trade secrets to foreign governments.
He argues that these policies, while framed as humanitarian, would ultimately stifle the development of new medicines and other technologies by undermining the incentives that make R&D possible.
“If biotech firms believe their breakthroughs may be taken away at the whim of international organisations, the incentive to take risks and invest in costly R&D — including during pandemics and other crises — disappears,” states Kappos.
Kappos calls on Congress, the US Trade Representative’s office, and other government agencies to defend American IP against international proposals that would compromise America’s innovative edge.
Read the full op-ed here:
https://www.iam-media.com/trade-secrets/article/stop-geneva-transferring-us-wealth-abroad