Original news and analysis on international IP policy
Colonial history says that indigenous peoples were in the past sometimes asked to sign treaties that may not have been in their best interest or that were not honoured. Now, under the aegis of the United Nations, some indigenous peoples fear it may be happening again, only this time they are fighting to be at the table as the subject is their traditional practices, and the outcome would apply on a global scale.
World Intellectual Property Organization members this week set the stage for text-based negotiations for an international instrument on the protection of traditional knowledge, folklore and genetic resources.
Negotiators trying this week to advance talks for UN World Intellectual Property Organization treaties on traditional knowledge, genetic resources, and folklore have made progress on draft texts, but are facing sharp criticism from indigenous groups and some governments claiming their concerns are being ignored.
The protection of genetic resources from misappropriation, institutionalised in October 2010 by the Nagoya Protocol, is getting nearer to realisation as eight new countries ratified the protocol yesterday.
World Intellectual Property Organization delegates negotiating this week for a possible agreement on protection of traditional knowledge have advanced the text from which they are working, according to a copy obtained by Intellectual Property Watch. Meanwhile, the brand-name pharmaceutical industry sought to explain an alleged biopiracy case at a side event at WIPO today.
Although indigenous peoples’ rights are recognised in a number of international declarations, the implementation of those rights is difficult to achieve, according to panellists at an event opening this week’s World Intellectual Property Organization negotiations toward a treaty to protect traditional knowledge, folklore and genetic resources.
Building on recent momentum that has produced negotiating texts towards an international instrument to protect folklore, traditional knowledge and genetic resources, delegates to the World Intellectual Property Organization next week will try to clean the texts that still bear signs of division.
Mandated efforts to create an international register of geographical indications have risen in importance at the World Trade Organization in recent weeks. And as the pressure to produce negotiating texts for the Doha Round discussions climaxed this week, some dissonant notes were heard in the main negotiating group of countries on GIs.
Niels Louwaars of the Centre for Genetic Resources, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, discusses the importance of plant breeder’s rights. He makes the case for a carefully balanced protection for plant breeders and changes to patents in agriculture, in order to ensure a competitive, diversified supply of plant varieties and seeds.
Funding mechanisms and farmers’ rights were among the issues that captured the attention of member countries of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture during the biannual meeting of its Governing Body.
The World Intellectual Property Organization went to India last week to highlight the country’s success in creating a digital library of Indian traditional knowledge, which it uses to prevent illegitimate patenting of its resources. But whether WIPO found a way to fit the Indian project into the UN agency’s mission to protect and promote intellectual property rights was unclear.
A new draft document was issued yesterday by a drafting group of experts at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The drafting group was in charge of cleaning up a text with aspirations to become a draft international instrument on the protection of genetic resources, and added a number of options for a possible treaty.