By Syndicated Content By Michael Erman and Blake Brittain (Reuters) – U.S. support for waiving intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines could be a tactic to convince drugmakers to back less drastic steps like sharing technology and expanding joint ventures to quickly boost global production, lawyers said on Thursday. “I think the end result that most players are looking for here is not IP waiver in particular, it’s expanded global access to the vaccines,” said Professor Lisa Ouellette of Stanford Law School. President Joe Biden on Wednesday supported a proposal to waive World Trade Organization intellectual property (IP) rules, which would allow poorer countries to produce vaccine for themselves. So far COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed primarily to the wealthy countries that developed them, while the pandemic sweeps through poorer ones, like India.