Indigenous traditional knowledge

World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Adopts Treaty on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge

Matthew Campbell

In a historic step toward protecting Indigenous Peoples’ genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, on May 24, 2024, Member States of WIPO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, adopted a landmark new treaty. Culminating over two decades of negotiations, the treaty requires patent applicants to disclose when they seek to patent inventions that are based on genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources.  The disclosure requirement is aimed at preventing the erroneous granting of patents based on “prior art” (e.g., the use of plant medicine known to Indigenous Peoples for centuries) and can also help to curb instances of biopiracy by pharmaceutical companies and others who seek to profit from use of traditional knowledge to develop new medications or other products. The treaty, WIPO’s first involving Indigenous Peoples, references the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as States’ commitment to achieving the ends of the Declaration. It also includes provisions allowing for Indigenous Peoples’ participation in the treaty’s implementation.

The treaty will enter into force following ratification by 15 countries. Negotiations will continue at WIPO in December 2024, on other potential treaties for the protections for Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.  The Native American Rights Fund participates in the negotiations on behalf of the National Congress of American Indians. 

WIPO Member States Adopt Historic New Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge

You can learn more here.

New Scholarship on Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property Law

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Ikechi Mgbeoji has posted “Making Space for Grandma: The Emancipation of Traditional Knowledge and the Dominance of Western-Style Intellectual Property Rights Regimes” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

The question that this paper seeks to tackle is whether the patent system is of any relevance or pertinence to the search for mechanisms for the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) of the medicinal uses of biodiversity possessed by traditional knowledge practitioners across different parts of the world. Allegations of biopiracy have been made against researchers, bioprospectors and other entities actively scouring indigenous peoples’ cornucopia for the next miracle drug. The objective of this paper will be achieved through two main approaches. The first analyzes the historical and philosophical roots of the divide between dominant regimes of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and Traditional Knowledge (TK). As already noted, the patent system is used as the framework for the analysis. The second suggests ways and methodologies by which the divide may be bridged. The analysis concedes that the gaps are quite profound but nonetheless offer policy-makers some leeway and flexibility to protect TK by borrowing some of the features of dominant IPRs regimes. The approach is anchored on a pragmatic acceptance of the fact that dominant regimes are too well-established to be displaced by well-meaning but weak protagonists for purer versions of TK-models.