As the COVID-19 outbreak continues its spread across the globe—resulting in more than four million infections worldwide and thousands dying of the virus every day, a growing community of scientists, software developers, health organizations, public consortia, private companies, and federal agencies (e.g., NIH) have been collaborating and sharing their patented technologies and IP rights with the shared goal of understanding and responding to COVID-19.
We briefly look at some of the mechanisms, including open source software, patent pool, and open patent pledge, that are helping facilitate this open innovation paradigm.