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We can now add **patent theft** to the growing list of horrible policy decisions by President Biden. This is bad news on multiple levels.  Here’s what’s going on…

Last week, Mr. Biden came out in support of canceling the intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines developed here in the United States. In other words, he wants companies like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson to lose their patents so that other generic drug manufacturers throughout the world can copycat their vaccines!

So our vaccine companies – after all they did for our nation to develop vaccines in record time – would now have their intellectual property rights stripped away by the Biden Administration. He claims this would help speed up vaccine production in places like India and South America, who have fallen behind the rest of the world getting shots into arms. Which begs the question:

Does the U.S. have a role to help other nations?

Perhaps, but we don’t start by STEALING the intellectual property of our pharmaceutical companies! Yes, they’re in business to make money, but that’s not a bad thing!  Over the decades, they’ve been able to reinvest a lot of their profits into new technology, research, and personnel that (unbeknownst to them at the time) would ultimately *save our hides* this year. This is no way to treat them.

If the U.S. has an international role here, then let’s support broader licensing agreements for these companies. And let’s facilitate ways to expand manufacturing and distribution that doesn’t rob these companies blind.  But it is WRONG to eliminate the patents on the vaccines they’ve created.

This leads us to the bigger problem that Mr. Biden has now caused:

What incentive do these companies have now to invest in ANY new research, knowing Biden might come along and try to nullify their patent?  If one of them happens to develop a cure for, say, cancer, what’s to stop Biden from simply handing over their intellectual property to other companies?  And if a new pandemic rolls around, why would they bother developing the next miracle vaccine?!

I’ll certainly be looking for legislative solutions to stop the President from this patent busting, but unfortunately any bill on this front will probably go nowhere with Mr. Biden in the White House and Democrats currently in control of Congress.

Let’s hope these vaccine companies are able to successfully litigate this. It's yet another terrible decision by this President.