# Gates and the foundation oppose a broad COVID TRIPS waiver

Date: 2021

## The fact

In 2021 [Bill Gates](/people/bill-gates) and the Gates Foundation publicly opposed a broad WTO TRIPS waiver for COVID vaccines, arguing that manufacturing know-how not patents was the bottleneck.

## Context

India and South Africa had tabled a waiver. Neighbouring GAVI/COVAX is the allocation vehicle the foundation preferred. He did not write the TRIPS Agreement.

GAVI 2000 and CEPI 2017 are neighbouring finance. COVAX allocation failures sit in related analysis.

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 opposition to a TRIPS waiver is an IP-and-allocation instrument that rights groups treated as a barrier to Southern manufacturing. A position is not a WTO consensus.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 2021 Gates/foundation opposition to a broad TRIPS waiver, independently reported.

Not established: that waiving TRIPS 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.

The foundation lobbied. WTO members voted in slow motion. Manufacturers held licences. India and South Africa tabled the waiver.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Gates and the foundation oppose a broad COVID TRIPS waiver, not a later speech about Gates and the foundation oppose a broad COVID TRIPS waiver.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Gates and the foundation oppose a broad COVID TRIPS waiver on 2021-05-06 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 and the foundation oppose a broad COVID TRIPS waiver into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He took the position. The foundation lobbied. WTO members voted in slow motion. Manufacturers held licences. India and South Africa tabled the 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
- Public and donor investment in immunization systems: https://factrail.ai/drivers/ph-immunization-investment

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/world/gates-foundation-trips-waiver-covid-vaccines-2021-05-06/
- https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/gates-trips-2021