There’s A Hot Mess Over Patents for Covid Injections and They’re All Suing Each Other

Moderna is suing Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for patent infringement in the development of the first Covid injection approved in the United States.  Moderna claims they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.

According to a press release from Moderna on Friday last week, the lawsuit was being filed in Massachusetts, USA, and Düsseldorf in Germany.

“We are filing these lawsuits to protect the innovative mRNA technology platform that we pioneered, invested billions of dollars in creating, and patented during the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic,” Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said in the statement.”

Read more: Moderna sues Pfizer and BioNTech over coronavirus vaccine, The Guardian, 26 August 2022

There has been a concerted effort by corporate media, scientific press, Wikipedia and BioNTech to claim that Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó developed the revolutionary mRNA technology inside the Covid injections.  All of these claims have intentionally and wilfully disregarded the 9 issued patents of which Dr. Malone is a co-inventor.

“Since the issued patents directly contradicted those claims of original inventorship, for this reason alone it was necessary to demean and gaslight my contributions and to write me out of history, as was clearly attempted,” wrote Dr. Malone.

Dr. Malone invented mRNA vaccines while he was at the Salk Institute in 1987 and 1988.  In 2021, Dr. Malone began speaking out about his concerns about using the technology in Covid injections. 

If you compare Wikipedia’s pages for “mRNA Vaccine” for 14 June 2021 and 28 June 2021 the censorship is blatant.  The first three paragraphs under the heading “History,” of which the first two relate to Dr. Malone et. al were removed.  Below the images, we have attached a copy of the different versions of Wikipedia’s page, before and after, so a detailed comparison can be done if desired.

The current version of Wikipedia’s page shows even less information regarding the “history.”  It has reinstated the year “1989” but has removed all references to any names.

Not only did Wikipedia write Dr. Malone out of the history of the development of mRNA technology but he was also censored and banned from social media.

Moderna vs Pfizer and BioNTech

In a detailed article titled ‘Moderna sues BioNTech/Pfizer?’ Dr. Robert Malone reviews Moderna’s patents and press release in the context of his own experience and the original patents in which he is shown as co-inventor. You can read Dr. Malone’s full article HERE.

“I have done the diligence, reviewed the (amazingly superficial) press coverage which has been printed on this topic, and have already responded to three different interview and statement requests. Hopefully, by putting my thoughts down in the form of a Substack article, I can just refer future inquiries to this analysis,” Dr, Malone begins.

Moderna has decided that the time is right to seek damages from BioNTech and Pfizer for patent infringement on a few of its many patents.  It is asserting that it has patent rights relating to both the broad fundamental composition of the mRNA as a modified chemical structure and the use of any full-length coronavirus spike protein in a lipid nanoparticle formulation for a coronavirus vaccine.

As Dr. Malone noted: “To sort this out, one needs to review the actual patents involved in the claims (something that the corporate press is apparently incapable of doing). Which patents? Turning to the actual filed lawsuit, we find these key details summarised beginning on page 15 of 39.”

After reviewing the first patent Dr. Malone noted, amongst others, that neither Kariko nor Weissman are listed as inventors.  The key Kariko publication seems to pre-date this patent. “So, someone is “misrepresenting” this invention record here. As Kariko is employed by both U Penn (as faculty) and BioNTech (as a VP), it is either U Penn, BioNTech, or Moderna that have misrepresented their inventorship in this matter.”

This patent and the second Moderna patent failed to cite the relevant prior publications by Dr. Malone and patents issued to Vical and Dr. Malone et al. “It is my opinion that, for this reason alone, this patent is not valid,” Dr. Malone wrote.  In regards to the second patent, “the language is a pretty blatant rip-off of the prior Vical patent claims.”

Dr. Malone also noted for the second patent that “Moderna appears to be asserting that this patent also establishes rights to use any coronavirus spike protein or spike protein subunit. Even ones that were unknown at the time it was filed and issued.”

The third patent is similar to the second and Dr. Malone was unable to find a difference between the two, “but it must be there somewhere.”

Dr. Malone concludes: Based on my experience, all three of these patents can be readily invalidated due to the failure to cite relevant prior art.”

“To repeat, I have no financial interests here. But the work that I did and the relevant patents that I am a co-author on (which Moderna conspicuously fails to cite) are now in the public domain. They belong to everyone, not to Moderna, or to CureVac, or to BioNTech. And this may explain part of why there has been such an effort to write me out of history. Not only because some seek the Nobel Prize, but also because the intellectual property patent positions of some very profitable companies may become at risk if those contributions are acknowledged.

“And those contributions are increasingly being recognised, despite the concerted efforts of many to deny them.”

Other Lawsuits

To provide additional context, Dr. Malone noted that there were additional ongoing lawsuits regarding patents.

There is apparently another lawsuit between NIH/NIAID/Vaccine Research Centre and Moderna over who owns the rights to the specific vaccine which Moderna has sold to the US Government and throughout the world.

Read more: What the Moderna–NIH COVID vaccine patent fight means for research, Nature, 30 November 2021

There is also a lawsuit battle between the cationic lipid formulation companies which were spun out of the University of British Columbia – Arbutus and Alnylam, which some in Canada believe are owned to a significant extent by the family of Justin Trudeau.  By the end of March, Arbutus had sued Moderna, Alnylam had sued both Moderna and Pfizer and Acuitas Therapeutics had sued Arbutus and Genevant.

Read more: Why did Acuitas bring a patent lawsuit against Arbutus? Markman Advisors, 1 April 2022

And if that was not enough, Dr. Malone wrote, there is this: ‘Acuitas Therapeutics Sues Arbutus Biopharma Over mRNA-Delivery Patents’.

These patent infringement lawsuits have been filed against Moderna and Pfizer. Moderna is pursuing the “innovative” legal theory that even if it did infringe on these patents, the liability is held by the US Government, and so Arbutus and/or Alnylam will have to sue the US Government if they wish to recover damages. Details on this hot steaming mess can be found HERE.

An additional lawsuit that Dr. Malone didn’t mention in his article is the one CureVac filed against BioNTech in Germany last month, “to assert its intellectual property rights, accumulated over more than two decades of pioneering work in mRNA technology.”