The first application did not include ICMR.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has become a co-owner of the Covid-19 vaccine patent alongside Bharat Biotech.
Notably, in order to guarantee product availability as soon as possible, Bharat Biotech was giving high attention to creating the Covid-19 vaccine. Numerous obstacles beset Bharat Biotech International Limited’s (BBIL) Covid vaccine development, and everyone was rushing to create vaccines and submit the necessary patent applications before anybody else or before any data was released in journals.
The covid vaccine application from Bharat Biotech was submitted under the aforementioned conditions because the BBIL-ICMR agreement copy was a confidential document and was not available. Therefore, according to the press announcement, ICMR was not included in the first application.
The announcement also stated that although though this was an inadvertent error, the Patent office frequently makes mistakes of this nature, and as a result, the law contains provisions to address such errors.
“BBIL has great respect for ICMR and is thankful to ICMR for their continuous support on various projects therefore as soon as this inadvertent mistake was noticed, BBIL has already started the process to rectify it by including ICMR as co-owner of the patent applications for Covid-19 vaccine,” stated the release.
It further stated that BBIL is preparing the required legal paperwork and would submit it to the Patent Office as soon as it is completed and signed.
Notably, the press release stated that these steps are in compliance with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that BBIL and ICMR-NIV Pune signed for the collaborative development of the Covid-19 vaccine in April 2020.