About Us
The Open COVID Pledge calls on organizations around the world to make their patents and copyrights freely available in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The Pledge was originally developed by an international group of researchers, scientists, academics and lawyers seeking to accelerate the rapid development and deployment of diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, medical equipment, and software solutions in this urgent public health crisis. The project is led and stewarded by the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of law. To make the pledge or for information about how to support the pledge, please contact patentpledges@wcl.american.edu.
Steering Committee
We are a group of scientists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and individuals working to promote the removal of obstacles involving intellectual property in the fight against COVID-19. We are committed to innovative solutions to address this crisis, and urge the adoption of the Open COVID Pledge, Open COVID License, and other similar solutions in support of this goal.
Co-Chairs
Jorge L. Contreras, JD
Presidential Scholar and Professor, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law; Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Human Genetics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Research Fellow, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University Washington College of Law
Diane M. Peters, JD
Senior Fellow, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University Washington College of Law
Meredith Jacob, JD
Project Director, Copyright and Open Licensing, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University Washington College of Law
Members
Eric Steuer, JD
Creative Director and Communications Director, Creative Commons
Michael Eisen, PhD
Professor and HHMI Investigator, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Editor-in-Chief, eLife.
Ariel Ganz, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine.
Mark Lemley, JD
William H. Neukom Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the Director of the Stanford Law School Program in Law, Science & Technology.
Jenny Molloy, PhD
Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge
Alexander James Phillips
Co-founder, Helpful Engineering.
Mark Radcliffe, JD
Partner, DLA Piper
Frank Tietze, PhD
Lecturer in Technology and Innovation Management, Department of Engineering, Innovation and IP Management (IIPM) Lab, University of Cambridge
Reading and Resources
Books
Jorge L. Contreras & Meredith Jacob, eds., Patent Pledges: Global Perspectives On Patent Law’s Private Ordering Frontier (Edward Elgar, 2017) (IPKat’s Best Patent Law Book of 2018), https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/patent-pledges-9781785362484.html
Articles (in chronological order)
Diane M. Peters, General Counsel, Open Source Development Labs, Understanding Patent Pledges: an Overview of Legal Considerations. https://patentcommons.org/publications/OSDL_Whitepaper_Final_final_4-12-06.pdf (2006)
Lydia Pallas Loren, Building a Reliable Semicommons of Creative Works: Enforcement of Creative Commons Licenses and Limited Abandonment of Copyright, 14 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 271 (2007), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=957939
Jorge L. Contreras, Patent Pledges, 47(3) Ariz. St. L.J. 543-608 (2015), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2525947
Jorge L. Contreras, A Market Reliance Theory for FRAND Commitments and Other Patent Pledges, 2015(2) Utah L. Rev. 479-558 (2015), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2309023
Marta Belcher and John Casey, Hacking the Patent System: A Guide to Alternative Patent Licensing for Innovators, Juelsgaard Intellectual Property & Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School (January 2016), https://www.eff.org/document/hacking-patent-system-2016
Jesse L. Reynolds, Jorge L. Contreras & Joshua D. Sarnoff, Solar Climate Engineering and Intellectual Property: Toward a Research Commons, 18 Minn. J. L. Sci. & Tech. 1-110 (2017), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2753833
Jorge L. Contreras, The Evolving Patent Pledge Landscape, CIGI Papers No. 166, Apr. 3, 2018, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3157572
Jorge L. Contreras, Bronwyn H. Hall & Christian Helmers, Pledging Patents for the Public Good: Rise and Fall of the Eco-Patent Commons, 57 Houston L. Rev. 61-109 (2019), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3466156
Jonas Fabian Ehrnsperger & Frank Tietze, Patent pledges, open IP, or patent pools? Developing taxonomies in the thicket of terminologies. PLoS ONE 14(8): e0221411 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221411
F. Tietze, P. Vimalnath, L. Aristodemou and J. Molloy, “Crisis-Critical Intellectual Property: Findings From the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, doi: 10.1109/TEM.2020.2996982. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9120047 (2020)
Web sites
Creative Commons, CC0 “No Rights Reserved”, https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/
American University Washington College of Law – Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, Standards-Essential Patents and FRAND Licensing, https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/pijip/impact/patent/