2. Definition: tradition-based literary, artistic, or scientific
works; performances; inventions; scientific discoveries;
designs; marks, names, and symbols; undisclosed
information; and all other tradition-based innovations
and creations resulting from intellectual activity in the
industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.
Traditional knowledge
3. Yoga
Application of turmeric, neem, Jamun,
karela etc.
guanyin cao
examples
4. Defensive protection aims to stop people outside the community from acquiring
intellectual property rights over traditional knowledge. India, for example, has
compiled a searchable database of traditional medicine that can be used as
evidence of prior art by patent examiners when assessing patent applications.
This followed a well-known case in which the US Patent and Trademark Office
granted a patent (later revoked) for the use of turmeric to treat wounds, a
property well known to traditional communities in India and documented in
ancient Sanskrit texts
Positive protection is the granting of rights that empower communities to
promote their traditional knowledge, control its uses and benefit from its
commercial exploitation. Some uses of traditional knowledge can be protected
through the existing intellectual property system, and a number of countries have
also developed specific legislation. However, any specific protection afforded
under national law may not hold for other countries, one reason why many
indigenous and local communities as well as governments are pressing for an
international legal instrument.
Two types
5. India‟s TKDL, a collaborative project between the Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Department of
AYUSH, is a home-grown effort to ensure patent offices around
the world do not grant patents for applications founded on India‟s
wealth of age-old TK.
Cases on wound healing properties of turmeric, and the antifungal
properties of neem acted as stimulants for the formation of TKDL.
Origin
6.
7. So in June 1999: Recognition of need of creation of
Traditional Knowledge (TK) data bases and need of support
to developing countries by Standing Committee on
Information Technology (SCIT) of World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO).
January, 2001: Cabinet Committee of EconomicAffairs
(CCEA's) approval on TKDL Project
8. Neem tree (Azadirachta indica), the tree of miracles.
Ayurvedic literature -„Neem bark is cool, bitter, acrid and refrigerant
Attractive broad-leaved, evergreen, up to 30m tall.Trunk is 30-80 cm indiameter.
Essential oils, fatty acids, amino acids and chemicals such as nimbin, nimbinin and
nimbidin.
Seeds ,leaves oil, bark , roots have medicinalproperties.
Tiredness, cough, fever, loss of appetite,
worm infestation, vomiting, skin diseases
and diabetes.
Originates from the Indian subcontinentand
now grows in the dry regions of
more than 50 tropical countries.
9. • Used for centuries by local communities in agriculture as an insect and
pest repellent, in human and veterinary medicine, toiletries and
cosmetics.
• Since the 1980s, many neem related process and products have been patented
in Japan, USA and Europeancountries.
• USA (54) , Japan (35), Australia (23), India (14). In India more than 53 patent
applications are pending.
• The India and United States were involved in a biopiracydispute.
• In 1994, European Patent Office (EPO) granted a patent (EPO patent No.436257) to
the US Corporation W.R. Grace Company and US Department ofAgriculture.
• Neem-based bio-pesticides Neemix, for use on food
crops Granting of a patent to a neem-based crop
fungicide bythe European Patent Office (EPO).
• In 2000 EPO revoked patent following an appeal byIndia.
10. • Vandana Shiva of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and
Ecology(RFSTE) said "It was pure and simple piracy. The oil from neem has
been used traditionally by farmers to prevent fungus. It was neither a novel idea
nor wasit invented“.
• It got support of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture
Movements (IFOAM) and green euro-deputies.
• The backbone of the Indian argument, presented before the EPO by Professor U P
Singh, an agricultural scientist at the Benaras Hindu University, was that the
fungicidal qualities of the neem tree - a traditional plant known for its medicinal
properties -- and its use has been known in India for over 2,000years.
• EPO agreed that the process for which the patent had been granted had actually
beenin use in India for many years.
• Calling the EPO decision an historic one, Shiva said: "Patenting is one of the
ways through which traditional users can be threatened. The free tree will stay
free.
11. • A tropical herb grown in East India. powdered product made from the rhizomes of
its flowers has several popular uses worldwide.
• Turmeric powder has a distinctive deep yellow color and bittertaste.
• Used as a dye, a cooking ingredient, and a litmus in a chemical test, and has
medicinal uses.
• In the mid-1990s, turmeric became the subject of a patentdispute.
• A U.S. patent (no.5, 401,504) on turmeric was awarded to
the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1995,
specifically for the "use of turmeric in wound healing."
• Two years later, a complaint was filed by India's
Council of Scientific and IndustrialResearch(CSIR).
12. • In India, where turmeric has been used medicinally for thousands of years,
concerns grew about the economically and socially damaging impact of this
legal biopiracy.
• CSIR argued that turmeric has been used for thousands of years for healing wounds
and rashes and therefore its medicinal use was not a novelinvention.
• Their claim was supported by documentary evidence of traditional
knowledge, including ancient Sanskrit text and a paper published in 1953 in
the Journal ofthe Indian MedicalAssociation.
• United States Patent and Trademark Office (US PTO) investigated the validity of
this patent.
• In 1997, despite an appeal by the patent holders, the US PTO upheld the
CSIR objections and cancelled the patent.
• The turmeric case was a landmark judgment case as it was for the first time that a
patent based on the traditional knowledge of a developing country was successfully
challenged.
13. Case study – Patent issue Jamun, Brinjal, and
karela
• The use of “karela”, “ jamun ” and “ brinjal ” for control of diabetes
is common knowledge and everyday practice in India.
• The use of these substances in the treatment of diabetes dates back
many centuries in India and is mentioned in several ancient texts
on healing such as “Wealth of India”', the “Compendium of Indian
Medicinal Plants” and the “Treatise on Indian Medicinal Plants”.
14. • A patent number 5,900,240 was granted recently to Cromak Research Inc
based in New Jersey to a team comprising two non- resident Indian
scientists Onkar S Tomer and Kripanath Borah, and their colleague Peter
Glomski. The American patent was granted on an edible composition
comprising a mixture of at least two herbs selected from the group
consisting of jamun, bitter gourd or bitter melon (Karela), and eggplant
(brinjal) .
• The herbal mixtures have been cited as dietary supplements and are
claimed to be especially useful for lowering the glucose level in blood
among those suffering from diabetes.
15. • The patent was challenged on the ground of prior art.
• However, Article 102 of the U.S. Patent Law, which defines
prior art, does not recognise technologies and methods in use
in other countries as prior art. If knowledge is new for the
U.S., it is novel, even if it is part of an ancient tradition of
other cultures and countries.. Because of this, the Jamun
could be patented in the USA. But it does created hue and cry
in India for such a patent as it was considered to be a
biopiracy i.e. theft of Indian TK.
16. Conclusion
• Globalization have caused misuse of traditional knowledge for
monopolistic rights and the ultimate profit from itssales.
• So there is a strict need of awareness for the traditional procedures and
knowledge.
• Documentation activities undertaken by developing countries like India
are worth recognition.
• Therefore the protection, conservation and preservation of the
traditional knowledge and its practice and culture should be of major
concern.
• In order to prevent the misuse by unauthorized parties of traditional
knowledge and promotion of its use and its importance in development.
