The World Health Organization described the accord as the first transparent, global, non-exclusive licence for a Covid-19 health tool that will help correct "devastating global inequity".
The deal brings together the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the global Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), and the WHO's Covid-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) knowledge-sharing platform.
"The aim of the licence is to facilitate the rapid manufacture and commercialisation of CSIC's Covid-19 serological test worldwide," the WHO said.
The test effectively detects anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies developed in response to either a Covid-19 infection or a vaccine.
CSIC, one of Europe's main public research institutions, will provide the MPP or prospective licensees with know-how and training.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the licence, which will be royalty-free for low- and middle-income countries, as "the kind of open and transparent licence we need to move the needle on access during and after the pandemic."
He added: "I urge developers of Covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics to follow this example and turn the tide... on the devastating global inequity this pandemic has spotlighted."
C-TAP was founded in May 2020 as a platform for developers of Covid-19 treatments, tests and vaccines, and other health products to share intellectual property, knowledge, and data.
Set up during the scramble for Covid vaccines and treatments, the health technology repository was the brainchild of Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado.
The information pool was intended as a voluntary global bank for intellectual property and open-sourced data as part of a common front against the new coronavirus.
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