Jenny Peng is an IP Innovation Clinic Fellow and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. This article was written as a requirement for Prof. Pina D’Agostino’s Directed Reading: IP Innovation Program course.

In an age of increasing globalization, the ripple effect of a single event resulting in unintended consequences is nothing new. Amidst the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Russian government has recently announced a series of measures related to IP rights and payments in response to sanctions from foreign governments and corporations. One such measure was a , which stated that patent holders of foreign countries that commit unfriendly actions against Russia would be subjected to a compulsory licence of their inventions, utility models and industrial designs with 0% royalty to the owner of the intellectual property.

What is compulsory licencing?

is when a government permits another party to produce a patented product without the consent of the patent owner.

Under the World Trade Organization (WTO)’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS Agreement”), compulsory licencing is a flexibility in the field of patent protection. lists out conditions under which a compulsory licence may be granted, and specifically under Article 31(b), member nations are allowed to do so “in the case of a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency”. has further loosened this provision and confirmed that “each member [nation of the WTO] has the right to grant compulsory licences and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licences are granted”.

What does this mean in the current context of the world?

In most cases, compulsory licences are granted to meet the demand for a patented product in a domestic market. During a global health crisis, compulsory licences would facilitate knowledge sharing across nations and maximize efficiency in R&D and production.

, India and South Africa have led the proposal for a TRIPS Waiver that would temporarily suspend IP protection on medical products required to treat COVID-19. Fast forward to present day, these talks are still ongoing with no resolution to be reached between the push for scaling up production and increasing access to critical medicines on one side of the table, and the desire to protect intellectual property on the basis of sufficient production on the other.

Conclusion

Russia’s compulsory licence policy seems to be a direct response to international sanctions, and while it does not particularly target the pharmaceutical industry, this decision has certainly affected discussions of the COVID TRIPS Waiver. International cooperation is weakening, and Russia has set an example of its own national enforcement of compulsory licencing. As events continue to unfold, the “emergency” context surrounding compulsory licencing will likely continue to be a source of ambiguity and a point of debate.

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Photo by Michael Dziedzic ()

Tianchu Gao is an IPilogue Writer and a 1L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

Cybersecurity has become a major battlefield in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24^th, it had launched waves of cybersecurity attacks on a range of important social sectors of Ukraine.  The attacks in January focused on governmental websites. According to Ukraine officials, Russia had taken down around Ukraine government websites, including the central institutions such as the Cabinet of Ministers and the Security and Defense Council.

By February, brought down the websites of Ukraine’s defense ministry, army, and two largest banks: �����Ի���. Russia used a sophisticated that reached hundreds of computers from different organizations in Ukraine, including the defense, aviation, finance, and IT service sectors.  Although Russia never officially admitted it, believe that the Russian government is behind the groups that launched these attacks.

Quad9, a domain name system platform, detected attacks against computers and phones in Ukraine on March 9^th alone. According to cybersecurity expert , Ukrainians are experiencing increasing numbers of phishing and malware attacks during the war.

The Ukraine government responded to the attacks with support from and . The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence at Tallinn, Estonia, collaborates with Ukraine to strengthen its national cyber security. The EU had deployed a rapid-response team of ten cybersecurity experts from six different countries to help Ukraine mitigate the effects of the cyberattacks.

In addition to state actors, large private companies have lent Ukraine critical support. For instance, is helping Ukraine with cybersecurity. announced on April 7^th that it had disrupted cyberattacks from Russia targeting Ukraine and organizations in the United States and Europe. Its representative claims that Microsoft can observe Russia’s attack on the Ukraine government and infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion. Microsoft works closely with the Ukrainian government and other organizations to help them defend against the onslaught. Another example is , a space exploration tech company. It provides civilians and tech companies in Ukraine access to the Internet via satellite in rural or disconnected areas.

Private companies, especially tech giants, have been unprecedentedly active in interstate warfare. As cybersecurity becomes an increasingly important part of national security, big tech companies are likely to have more power and a higher level of involvement in global conflicts. While this change may benefit the public interest, it inevitably calls for more scrutiny and regulation.

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