Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I International Provision of Public Goods under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime
- PART II Innovation and Technology Transfer in a Protectionist Environment
- PART III Sectoral Issues: Essential Medicines and Traditional Knowledge
- 15 Managing the Hydra: The Herculean Task of Ensuring Access to Essential Medicines
- 16 Theory and Implementation of Differential Pricing for Pharmaceuticals
- 17 Increasing R&D Incentives for Neglected Diseases: Lessons from the Orphan Drug Act
- Comment: Access to Essential Medicines – Promoting Human Rights Over Free Trade and Intellectual Property Claims
- 18 Legal and Economic Aspects of Traditional Knowledge
- 19 Saving the Village: Conserving Jurisprudential Diversity in the International Protection of Traditional Knowledge
- 20 Legal Perspectives on Traditional Knowledge: The Case for Intellectual Property Protection
- Comment: Traditional Knowledge, Folklore and the Case for Benign Neglect
- 21 Protecting Cultural Industries to Promote Cultural Diversity: Dilemmas for International Policymaking Posed by the Recognition of Traditional Knowledge
- PART IV Reform and Regulation Issues
- Index
20 - Legal Perspectives on Traditional Knowledge: The Case for Intellectual Property Protection
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I International Provision of Public Goods under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime
- PART II Innovation and Technology Transfer in a Protectionist Environment
- PART III Sectoral Issues: Essential Medicines and Traditional Knowledge
- 15 Managing the Hydra: The Herculean Task of Ensuring Access to Essential Medicines
- 16 Theory and Implementation of Differential Pricing for Pharmaceuticals
- 17 Increasing R&D Incentives for Neglected Diseases: Lessons from the Orphan Drug Act
- Comment: Access to Essential Medicines – Promoting Human Rights Over Free Trade and Intellectual Property Claims
- 18 Legal and Economic Aspects of Traditional Knowledge
- 19 Saving the Village: Conserving Jurisprudential Diversity in the International Protection of Traditional Knowledge
- 20 Legal Perspectives on Traditional Knowledge: The Case for Intellectual Property Protection
- Comment: Traditional Knowledge, Folklore and the Case for Benign Neglect
- 21 Protecting Cultural Industries to Promote Cultural Diversity: Dilemmas for International Policymaking Posed by the Recognition of Traditional Knowledge
- PART IV Reform and Regulation Issues
- Index
Summary
ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the feasibility of devising a new form of intellectual property (IP) protection that would recognize the social value of traditional knowledge (TK) and promote its integration into domestic and international trade regimes while respecting and preserving local autonomy and cultural values. Interest in the protection of TK is rooted in the goal of promoting social, economic, and ecological development of rural areas. It responds to concerns about fairness and equity in international economic relations affecting the livelihood of the bulk of the world's population. The topic is also of importance in the context of redefining the relationship between public goods, private rights, and the transfer of technology. Taken together, these concerns lead us to evaluate the policies and legal instruments pertaining to traditional knowledge that are best suited to achieving equity, validation, and sustainability while preserving open access to plant genetic materials for scientific research.
Introduction
The term “traditional knowledge” (TK) expresses the ways and means by which individuals or communities identify and improve genetic resources over time, including processes related to their extraction from nature and their preparation for human usage. Also implicated by the term are methods and techniques for preserving the communities' accumulated information about genetic resources for future generations.
On the surface, TK does not readily lend itself to present-day IP protection because it does not directly yield “innovation” in the conventional sense of the term.
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- International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology Under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime , pp. 565 - 594Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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