30 Oct Why Intellectual Property Matters for Health Equity
October is National Intellectual Property Month — a time to reflect on how innovation and creativity are supported, protected and shared. At the Health Equity Collaborative (HEC), we believe this month offers a unique opportunity to explore how intellectual property (IP) can be a key tool in advancing health equity.
What we mean by IP and health equity
“Intellectual property” refers to legal rights that protect innovations of the mind — inventions, designs, brand identities, creative works, trade secrets and more. In health and medicine, IP rights often apply to new treatments, diagnostics, devices, data platforms, and so on.
“Health equity” means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health — regardless of race, ethnicity, income, geography or other social factors. At HEC, our commitment is to healthcare inclusion for the wellness of a diverse nation.
When we bring IP and health equity together, we ask: How can we ensure that innovations made possible by IP protections deliver benefits to all populations — especially historically underserved communities — rather than leaving them behind?
How IP can support health equity
Here are several ways IP — when thoughtfully managed — can contribute to health equity:
- Incentivizing innovation for underserved populations: IP protection helps innovators recoup investment, attract funding, and bring new health technologies to market. As the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) notes, “effective IP management can enable diverse partners to share expertise and innovation … and help deploy new technologies to respond to the needs of underserved populations.”
- Enabling partnerships and technology transfer: IP frameworks can facilitate public-private partnerships, collaborations among universities, nonprofits, industry and government — which can accelerate development of treatments or diagnostics for diseases disproportionately affecting marginalized communities.
- Building sustainable health innovation ecosystems: By protecting novel inventions and enabling licensing or commercialization, IP can help create viable businesses, job opportunities, and local manufacturing capacity — supporting broader economic and health system strength in disadvantaged regions.
- Leveraging IP beyond medicines: Health equity isn’t just about drugs. It includes digital health platforms, data analytics, diagnostics, devices. IP protections help those innovations scale and reach new populations. For example, in healthcare companies, the brand, data, technology and patents are increasingly being valued and leveraged.
In short, when managed proactively, IP can be a force for health equity — enabling innovation and access.
Why it matters
At HEC, we know that health disparities are rooted in structural, social, economic and systemic factors. Innovation alone won’t close the gap — but neither will innovation that excludes. IP, when aligned with equity, becomes a tool to bridge the divide: enabling new therapies, diagnostics, devices, digital health models — and ensuring they reach the patients and communities who often get left behind.
For a diverse nation to achieve wellness for all, we need innovation and advocacy and access. In this National Intellectual Property Month, let’s recommit to harnessing IP in service of every community.