# Gates argues publicly against sharing COVID vaccine IP as the default

Date: 2020

## The fact

In April 2020 [Bill Gates](/people/bill-gates) argued publicly that COVID vaccine intellectual property should not be treated as a freely shared commons, a completed position that preceded the 2021 TRIPS-waiver fight.

## Context

Neighbouring COVAX launch is later April 2020. Neighbouring TRIPS 2021 is the later WTO file. He did not write a Pfizer licence.

COVAX 24 April is neighbouring allocation. TRIPS May 2021 is neighbouring WTO politics.

Bill Gates was Microsoft CEO until January 2000, chairman until February 2014, then a technical adviser until 2020, and a Gates Foundation co-chair. That is not authorship of every Windows copy, every GAVI dose, or every IRS schedule. Melinda French Gates is a different person. Bill Clinton is PER-000772, a different person. A pledge is not a coverage rate. A docket is not a personality.

## Evidence and sources

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [vaccine-accessibility](/drivers/vaccine-accessibility): a completed early IP stance is a manufacturing-and-licence instrument later criticised as slowing Southern production.

## What is established and what is not

Established: April 2020 public Gates stance against free-sharing COVID vaccine IP, independently reported.

Not established: that a different IP stance would have uniquely produced a coverage rate, or a unique later death coefficient from the interview.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Manufacturers held patents. WHO and GAVI built COVAX as the alternative he preferred. India and South Africa later tabled a waiver.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Gates argues publicly against sharing COVID vaccine IP as the default, not a later speech about Gates argues publicly against sharing COVID vaccine IP as the default.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Gates argues publicly against sharing COVID vaccine IP as the default on 2020-04-12 is not a licence to treat every later Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Gates argues publicly against sharing COVID vaccine IP as the default into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He took the position. Manufacturers held patents. WHO and GAVI built COVAX as the alternative he preferred. India and South Africa later tabled a waiver. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Bill Gates: https://factrail.ai/people/bill-gates

## Drivers

- Vaccine Accessibility: https://factrail.ai/drivers/vaccine-accessibility
- Vaccine hesitancy and erosion of public trust in immunization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/ph-vaccine-hesitancy

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-gates-idUSKCN21U2K4
- https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/gates-covid-ip-2020