"What is the current issue? It is not really about intellectual property. Can you give intellectual property to laboratories that do not know how to produce and will not produce tomorrow?" he told reporters.
"The main issue for solidarity is the distribution of doses."
EU Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager said it was "not enough that we get vaccinated. We need everyone on the planet to be safe."
EU leaders are divided over whether to follow Washington in supporting a waiver of patent rights to COVID-19 vaccines, as many argue this would take years and not address the immediate issue of making more shots to end the pandemic.
Leaders of the 27-nation bloc will discuss the patent waiver idea at the two-day Porto summit, but are unlikely to formulate a strong united position apart from a general readiness to discuss the topic.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said he was "open" to the idea of a waiver while Germany, whose BionTech company owns a patent on a vaccine jointly developed with U.S. Pfizer using the latest mRNA technology, opposes the waiving of the patent right.