After slip, Bharat Biotech moves to add ICMR as co-owner of Covaxin patent

HYDERABAD: After it came to light that Bharat Biotech International Ltd (BBIL) had taken sole credit in the patent for India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin (BBV152), which it had developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Hyderabad-based vaccine maker on Saturday said it has initiated the process to include ICMR as co-owner.

“These actions are in accordance with the MoU signed between ICMR-National Institute of Virology, Pune, and BBIL for joint development of Covid-19 vaccine in April 2020,” Bharat Biotech said.

The company attributed the inadvertent omission of ICMR in its patent filings to the rush to file for patents before data could be published in journals. Bharat Biotech's patent filings for Covaxin at patent offices in India, US and Europe mentions the names of only Deepak Kumar and Krishna Murthy Ella.

“Bharat Biotech was working on developing the Covid-19 vaccine as a top priority to ensure product availability at the earliest. The vaccine development of BBIL was faced with multiple challenges and all organizations were in a rush to develop vaccines and file the appropriate patents, prior to any other entity or prior to any data being published in journals," it said.

“Bharat Biotech’s covid vaccine application was filed in above circumstances and since BBIL-ICMR agreement copy, being a confidential document, was not accessible. Hence ICMR was not included in the original application,” it added.

Terming this as purely unintentional, the company said such mistakes were not uncommon for the patent office which is why patent law provides provisions for rectification of such mistakes.

“BBIL has great respect for ICMR and is thankful 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. Necessary legal documents are being prepared for it and BBIL will file those documents in the patent office as soon as those are ready and signed,” BBIL said.
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