Many people are unaware of the essential role that Intellectual Property (IP) played in the response to COVID-19. The effort to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments required extensive collaboration among biopharmaceutical companies and other institutions. Without IP, much of that collaboration could not have occurred in the way that it did. Many successes may never have occurred or could have taken much longer.

It is so important for people to understanding the workings and benefits of intellectual property – not just governments, businesses, and intellectual property (IP) experts, but also people across society more generally.

Many designers do not spend a lot of time thinking about copyright protection, but just do their work creating designs and think that things like copyright law are for big businesses with expensive lawyers! As much as it might not be at the front of mind for some creative workers, copyright is important.

More than 25 biopharmaceutical companies recently launched the IP PACT – IP Principles for Advancing Cures and Therapies – with the objective of explaining how patient and societal interest are at the core of their approach to intellectual property, and how they intend to maintain this focus as they invent and develop new innovations to advance the field of medicine.

The healthcare industry is growing to be one of the most impactful markets of the 21st century. The COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed investments into transformative medical technology and as the world begins to recover, more innovation will be expected of the healthcare world to help curb future pandemics.

When it comes to innovation in the healthcare development sector, intellectual property plays a vital role in how new technologies and devices emerge in the industry. Here’s how intellectual property laws play a role in healthcare development and why it’s important to utilize them.

For many companies in every industry, a digital transformation is underway, as they seek to develop a competitive advantage through new digital innovations and rely more heavily on digital data. This digital transformation is creating an enormous amount of new confidential information – much that should be considered and protected as trade secrets. It is thus increasingly important for companies to build a systematic, effective culture of protecting trade secrets – well beyond mere document marking and non-disclosure agreements.