China Would Benefit from Proposed IP Giveaway

China steals up to $600 billion of American intellectual property every year -- more than the entire GDP of most countries.

Considering the sheer scale of this theft, Americans should be shocked to learn that the White House is considering a plan that would voluntarily give the fruits of American innovation to China and other economic and geopolitical rivals.

But that is precisely what's happening.

In the spring of 2022, the World Trade Organization, with the United States' consent, voted to waive patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines. These life-saving vaccines came about thanks to decades of scientific research, and cost Western companies enormous sums to test, manufacture, and deliver to the world.

Proponents of the waiver argued that intellectual property protections were inhibiting access to vaccines in poorer countries. But there was never any evidence to back up that claim. Indeed, to date, the waiver has not been applied to manufacture Covid-19 vaccines. Simply put, access issues were largely tied to vaccine hesitancy and local delivery and distribution snags.

Unfortunately, it appears we haven't learned from this experience.

Some WTO members are now seeking to expand last year's decision to waive IP rights for Covid-19 therapeutics and diagnostics. The WTO could make a final decision as soon as February 2024.

An expanded IP waiver -- which would need the approval of the Biden administration, since WTO decisions are made by consensus -- is a solution to a problem that does not exist. As was the case for vaccines, there's no evidence of IP protections inhibiting access to diagnostics and therapeutics. In communication with WTO officials last fall, nations around the world, as also reported by Switzerland and Mexico, confirmed there was "no shortage" of these products.

In addition to delivering no tangible benefits, an expansion of the waiver would needlessly put America's national security and economy at risk.

Waiving IP rights for life-saving Covid products would be a gift to China -- which poses the gravest long-term threat to U.S. economic and national security.

China is already hard at work undercutting Western companies. Beijing is making notable strides in high-tech R&D and innovation, often at the direct expense of U.S. researchers and manufacturers.

Take, for instance, cutting-edge vanadium redox flow batteries. The manufacturing technology for these cutting-edge batteries was developed thanks to American ingenuity at U.S. national laboratories. Yet China -- not the United States -- is now the world's largest manufacturer of these high-performance batteries.

Redox flow batteries are only one example. The United States has already lost manufacturing dominance in various product categories - and is struggling to revive it.

One area where we continue to lead -- for now -- is life sciences. America remains a trailblazer in this field, leading the world in biopharmaceutical R&D. The biopharmaceutical industry contributes hundreds of billions of dollars to our economy and employs hundreds of thousands of Americans across nearly every state in the country.

But China is open about wanting to challenge America's lead. Beijing's "Made in China 2025" industrial strategy identifies biotech as a target for China's growth. They're making steady progress toward this objective, quadrupling the value of China's pharmaceutical sector between 2016 and 2022.

Moving forward with a WTO TRIPS waiver expansion would willfully support China's plans to control global biomedical and related supply chains. Granting China and other competitors the ability to churn out American-invented Covid therapies without compensation or license would directly reduce demand for U.S. manufacturing capacity and undermine the foundations of future U.S. innovation. Such a misguided action would interfere with our ability to respond quickly to future public health crises, while further jeopardizing American jobs.

The technologies underlying Covid treatments and diagnostics can lead to many other classes of valuable new products and life-saving countermeasures well beyond Covid. An IP waiver would open the door to ceding even more leverage to foreign competitors.

Beijing stands ready to gain from the United States' innovation losses. As FBI Director Christopher Wray warned, "it may be a lot cheaper to preserve your intellectual property now than to lose your competitive advantage and have to build a new one down the road." I agree. It's time the world wakes up to China's nefarious tactics and stops deliberately giving our innovation advantages away.

Protecting intellectual property is about more than enabling innovation. U.S. jobs and our economic and national security are at stake. It's time for the White House to protect American innovation by firmly rejecting the proposed IP waiver at the WTO.

Walter G. Copan, PhD, is vice president for research and technology transfer at Colorado School of Mines, and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and co-founder of its Renewing American Innovation project. He previously served as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).