Entering May, a number of major Japanese corporations like Toyota, Canon, and Shimadzu have been announcing their declaration not to assert IP rights for ideas used to fight the novel coronavirus that is impacting the world so heavily now. This Japanese effort is part of the global movement of the Open Coevid Pledge, adopted by Facebook, Amazon, and other large entities last month.
The “Open Covid-19 Declaration” (dated April 3, 2020) that the Japanese signatories make says, “we hereby declare, without seeking compensation, that we will not assert any patent, utility model, design or copyright during the time of this crisis, against any activities whose purpose is stopping the spread of COVID-19, including diagnosis, prevention, containment and treatment.” See the website for details of the declaration that pledgers make.
Researchers and others will be glad to take advantage of the numerous patents and designs made available by the spreading global declaration (the Japanese “Declaration” is longer than the published “Pledge” mentioned above, but links to the latter).
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Taro Yaguchi
Sources
“Open COVID-19 Declaration.” https://www.gckyoto.com/covid-2 Accessed May 12, 2020.
