The Lens is building an interactive tool for understanding the landscape of patent and research works in any domain, including human coronaviruses and COVID-19. However the full ‘Report Builder’ functionality is still under development.

Considering the urgency of the crisis and the need to develop improved practices and products for diagnosis, therapeutics, medical devices and tools for protection and treatment, vaccines and other interventions, The Lens shared draft collections and datasets created for the Human Coronavirus landscape (see below). For a more updated data, please see the live Lens Report, Human Coronaviruses: Patent and Research Landscape. Alternatively, the Lens provided all search queries and you can replicate these easily in the Lens and export the most updated versions of the datasets.

Surface and Repurpose

Patents are typically first published 18 months after filing, so patents specifically targeted to this new COVID-19 agent may not appear until June of 2021. However, the virus and disease are related to the SARS and MERS viral outbreaks of the last two decades so there is a wealth of knowledge to mine - to 'Surface and Repurpose' - that can help in the fight against COVID-19.

Surfacing technologies and methods of making things within the patent literature where the patent is no longer protected in many parts of the world, the patents have expired, or the technologies exist with rights; is essential and must be openly accessible for re-use and repurposing in the fight against COVID-19. Discovering and forging new partnerships that can bring unique capabilities to the fight is critical, as is targeting investments at the highest impact pathways and trajectories. All of this requires open, reliable evidence.

To inform any move towards common action, we need open data and shared, evidence-driven analysis. We hope these datasets and analytic tools help.

Will we need a COVID-19 Commons?

To develop fast effective solutions, we may need sharing of patented technologies or particular in-house capabilities in a COVID-19 Commons, voluntarily, incentivized or mandated.

In other times of national or global crisis, such pools or license commons have been developed to accelerate solutions and share the benefits widely. In 1917, one year before the Spanish Influenza pandemic, the US government in the throes of World War One, forced the formation of a licensing commons to break the patent logjam that was halting progress on military aircraft (e.g. Manufacturers Aircraft Association). The HIV/AIDS crisis was also critical for stimulating improvements in the TRIPS Agreement to clarify compulsory licensing for public health emergencies.

Will the COVID-19 crisis require such interventions?

Introducing Lens Reports ^Beta

Lens Reports is a new facility for creating evidence-based, open, sharable and reusable reports linked to real Lens data and analytics.

VIROLOGY

SARS-CoV-2: Navigating information overload

Evidence must be used to guide interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic, but that evidence must be comprehensive, credible and shared for it to be effective. This report...

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