On April 20, Microsoft officially committed itself to the Open COVID Pledge for the sake of the global fight against the novel coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic. 

This was announced by the software company’s chief IP counsel Jennifer Yokohama in its website.

The Open COVID Pledge was created by the Open COVID Coalition, an international team of lawyers and scientists, to provide a framework for companies, organizations and universities around the world to make their IP assets available for use in efforts to curb the health crisis.

With this framework, companies who commit to the pledge may license their IP assets to contribute to efforts undertaken by other organizations in the development of products and innovations to help fight the disease. Aside from test kits, vaccines and medical devices, these innovations also include software and AI-assisted tools that will aid governments, researchers and scientists in the race to address the problem.

By committing to the pledge, Microsoft is now setting off its patents for use free of charge by other business entities and organizations in the development of these devices and other solutions.

The announcement in the Microsoft website reads, “We are always looking for ways we can use our patents to contribute to positive outcomes, and the fight against COVID-19 is one of the most urgent issues of our time. Pledges and open licensing of this kind can help spur innovation, especially in a crisis like this one. Researchers, scientists and others working to fight the virus should be able to develop and deploy effective solutions at scale without obstacles such as being threatened with patent litigation.”

The company’s commitment to the Open COVID Pledge is one of its latest contributions to global initiatives against Covid-19. Intel, Facebook, IBM, Amazon and Hewlett Packard are some of the other institutions which have also committed to the pledge.

For more information, visit https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/04/20/open-covid-19-pledge-patents/.

Espie Angelica A. de Leon