Should vaccine patents be removed?

Pandemic, which refers to an outbreak of a disease, was not a familiar word for most of us until 2020. Along with the Covid-19 pandemic, which emerged in 2020 and took thousands of lives, the modern man began to experience a noteworthy outbreak for the first time. Prior to the time when vaccines for Covid 19 were found, everyone was helpless in the fight against the virus, be it from the richest person to the most deprived. Thanks to advances in science in the 21st century, vaccines for Covid-19 were developed in an unprecedentedly short period. However, this wasn’t, unfortunately, an instant remedy for Covid-19 and led to the emergence of distribution and production problems. Leaders who couldn't allocate money for these vaccines asked the pharmaceutical companies behind the vaccines to waive their patents, and difficulties in distribution, economic hardships, and poverty in certain nations naturally brought about the discussion of whether this brings conflicts about whether Covid-19 patents should be waived or not. It seems to me that vaccine patents shouldn't be waived, but vaccines should be accessible to every human regardless of which country they live in.     

Firstly, Patents provide scientists with a source of motivation to keep doing research and to keep finding new solutions. Scientists are unfairly criticized because of the fact that they obtain wealth through patents. Yet, there are no universal rules for scientists must dedicate their inventions to humanity. Besides, a large number of scientists devote their all lives to finding beneficial discoveries and developing innovative medical technologies for us; and thus, they need to be rewarded for their hard work and effort. In other words, patents are motivation sources for scientists to receive a return for their labor. If patents were waived, what would their motivations be for new discoveries?   

Secondly, the Existence of patents ensures an equal competition base for companies. Because all companies are eager to generate more profit, they race to become the first inventor of an invention or a product in order to take its patent under their name and reap the proceeds and the profits that come with such patents firstly. In an alternative world in which patents could never be registered, why would companies make such a great effort to become the first inventor? Instead of going out of their way to win the race, they would prefer to try to minimize the production cost and the length of the production process of an invention. The one who sold their products for the most minimum prices and produces quickly would make more profit.   

Thirdly, removing patents cause the emergence of less efficient and more unreliable vaccines; thereby getting rid of covid-19 would take more time. In addition, opening the production rights of a vaccine for everyone might trigger viruses to mutate and increase the risk of a biological attack because controlling all companies working on Overall, even though waiving vaccine patents seem to be a great solution to overcome the pandemic, at least at first glance, in fact, it gives rise to providing all humans with protection, it gives rise to concerns about maintaining the reliability and efficiency of vaccines; also, if patents were removed, the motivation source of scientist and companies would be destroyed. Hence, imposing patents is a must, I believe.