The development of vaccines to prevent COVID-19 has become a fascinating story, especially for those with an interest in life sciences. In the development of COVID-19 vaccines, there has been a surprising uptake in the use of a relatively new vaccine platform. In this article, Dr. Leena Contarino and Ellie Purnell at HGF look at the patent landscape covering some of the platform technologies that are being exploited by researchers in the race to develop an effective COVID-19 vaccine.