[zozbot234]

Companies like Moderna did dispense with IP restrictions around the vaccine, but it turns out that this was never a binding constraint in the first place. These vaccines must essentially be brewed via a biological process, not merely synthesized in a chemical lab like most pharmaceuticals. There's probably a whole lot of fuzzy know-how in this that's inherently hard to replicate, no matter what the legal environment is like.

[j33zusjuice]

I don’t think anything happened at a governmental level, but I know some companies open sourced select patents to help with the pandemic. I vaguely remember an issue with 3D printing ventilator parts because it violated the patent [1], but I don’t think that company ever actually sued anyone, they just threatened it.

1. https://www.techtimes.com/amp/articles/248121/20200317/maker...

[api]

Reminds me of very small integrated circuit process nodes where the manufacturing process itself is so rife with trade secrets and "art not science" that it's hard to duplicate even without IP restrictions.

[thfuran]

Aren't mRNA vaccines quite straightforward to manufacture?

[marcosdumay]

They are incredibly hard to manufacture. They are just all manufacture the same way with the same equipment, so if you can do one, you can do any.