Moderna’s U.K. Vaccine Patent Pledge Cut Short by Boilerplate

By Jorge L. Contreras

On July 2, 2024, the High Court of the United Kingdom issued a decision in Moderna’s mRNA vaccine patent litigation against Pfizer and BioNTech. As I previously discussed in October of 2020, Moderna pledged not to enforce its patents against makers of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. Then, in 2022, Moderna sued competing vaccine makers Pfizer and BioNTech.  Pfizer/BioNTech responded that Moderna’s pledge authorized them to practice the asserted patents, at least until the end of the World Health Organization (WHO)-declared pandemic, which occurred in May 2023. Last week, however, the U.K. court found that the “forward-looking statement” boilerplate routinely appended to press releases of U.S. public companies permitted Moderna to revoke its pledge before the end of the pandemic, and that Moderna successfully did so in March 2022.

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Grayslake, IL - January 30, 2021: Drive-through indoor COVID-19 vaccination facility at the Lake County Fairgrounds in Grayslake. The facility is dispensing both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine.

COVID-19 Vaccine Patent Infringement? The Battle Between Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Continues

By Aparajita Lath

Last month, the patent battle between COVID-19 mRNA vaccine manufacturers continued with BioNTech/Pfizer filing a strong defense and counter-claim to Moderna’s allegations of patent infringement.

In their initial August 2022 complaint, Moderna alleged that three of its mRNA patents were infringed by Pfizer/BioNTech. Interestingly, as of January 12, 2023, Moderna has listed 10 patents covering Spikevax (its mRNA vaccine) on its website. Since biotechnology inventions can be covered by several patents, each of which may not be easy to identify through public searches, the decision to publish a consolidated list of patents is a move in the right direction. However, the list is an evolving one, and, as it happens, one of three patents at issue, i.e., patent no. 10,933,127 (‘127) has not been listed.

The following article explains the key patents at stake in the intellectual property dispute.

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