Ajinomoto Co., Inc. Joins the IP Open Access Declaration Against COVID-19 as a Founding Signatory

TOKYO, May 8, 2020 – Ajinomoto Co., Inc. (“Ajinomoto Co.”) joined the IP Open Access Declaration Against COVID-19 (the “OPEN COVID-19 DECLARATION”) on April 28, 2020 as a founding signatory at the request of the Center for Genomic Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University and began offering open access to its intellectual property during a defined period for diagnosis, testing, treatment, hygiene management and other measures to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

In the OPEN COVID-19 DECLARATION, approximately 20 companies have declared that they will not assert any intellectual property rights for patents, utility models, designs or copyrights with respect to activities carried out solely for the purpose of stopping the spread of COVID-19. By not seeking any compensation for such activities until the date on which the World Health Organization declares that the COVID-19 pandemic no longer constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the declarers will eliminate concerns about infringement of intellectual property as well as the time and labor involved in patent searches, thereby supporting the activities of all corporations and organizations working to end the spread of the disease.

The Ajinomoto Group’s technologies are widely used in fields peripheral to advanced medicine, including pharmaceutical ingredients and pharmaceuticals. In the future, Ajinomoto Co. also expects to contribute through its biopharmaceuticals contract development and manufacturing organization, and hopes that through the Open COVID-19 DECLARATION its intellectual property will help bring about an early end to the pandemic.

Ajinomoto Co. will continue to help realize comfortable lives for consumers and extend healthy life expectancy by providing products, services and solutions that apply its expertise in food and health and the technologies it has cultivated in the field of amino acids.

About the Open COVID-19 DECLARATION: https://www.gckyoto.com/covid-2