Coronavirus: Impact on intellectual property

Intellectual property will experience a period of slowdown in activity, at least in the near future, due to the impact of Covid-19. However, this does not mean mandatory registration of industrial property will come to a halt because, with many bodies, including the Portuguese INPI (National Institute of Industrial Property), registration is already done online.

These are certainly animated times for the patenting of inventions relating to vaccines and drugs in general used in fighting this unprecedented pandemic. As a consequence, there is an intense activity involving a variety of contractual models such as patent pooling and licensing in general. Although these must be times of absolute solidarity, some litigation involving these inventions is unfortunately inevitable in the near future.

This briefing discussed some useful information on the functioning of registries, courts and arbitration centres in this area while the constraints decreed by the various national governments and supranational authorities remain in place. In addition, it looks at the exceptional measures applicable to most acts.