BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Pharmaceutical company Moderna said in 2020 it agreed not to enforce its COVID-19-related patents while the pandemic continued.

That is according to the timeline the company laid out in a lawsuit filed Friday claiming that period is up. 

"They expected, now that the pandemic had proceeded to an endemic stage rather than the pandemic stage that they would be seeking to ensure that their intellectual property was respected," Josh Mertzlufft, primary at Mertzlufft Law PLLC in Buffalo, said.

The company is suing Pfizer and BioNTech, the companies that collaborated to produce their own messenger RNA vaccine. Mertzlufft said Moderna asserts their competitors copied technology it was developing years prior to COVID-19.

"Moderna was founded just about a decade ago to actually develop this type of technology," he said. "Their name actually, Moderna, includes RNA in it with that purpose."

Mertzlufft said an important note is Moderna is not asking for an injunction or ultimately seeking for Pfizer to stop producing its vaccine. It is not seeking monetary damages for vaccines sold to the U.S. government or sales in a specified list of lower-income countries.

However, the company wants its intellectual property recognized, damages for some sales from the time it claims the pandemic entered a new phase in March of this year and future royalties. Mertzlufft said the case could impact the future development of mRNA technology which is being considered for a variety of illnesses.

"If Moderna is able to get everything they're asking for, companies are going to have to take a second glance at whether they're going to proceed into this field as well as what the cost of such development would be," he said.

From a legal perspective, the attorney said it will be interesting to see how Pfizer and BioNTech defend the case. They developed their vaccine under what the Trump administration called Operation Warp Speed, an initiative to cut through red tape and bring vaccines to market more quickly.

"Pfizer may try and claim some sort of immunity based on a principle of sovereign immunity and the fact they were instructed by the government, they were supported and endorsed by the US government in the development of this vaccine so that may add an interesting wrinkle to this case that would not normally be seen in a patent infringement case," he said.