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Figure: Taxonomic Dimensions of Knowledge Assets

Conclusion & Suggestions

India has created an elaborate database of its traditional knowledge but, surprisingly, has not made it accessible to the patent officers in other countries, thus, leaving room for bio-piracy through the patenting of Indian conventional products abroad. This defeats the very purpose for which the digital library on traditional knowledge was created at huge cost and involving the strenuous work of scanning through a mass of ancient literature. Had this database, containing exhaustive references, photographs of the plants and original texts, been in the public domain and available to patent offices around the world, no one would have been able to claim that these medicines, therapies or products were their inventions. Most patent offices recognize the information published in a journal or available on a database as prior existing knowledge, but not what is handed down over generations through oral and folk traditions - unless it is documented and made accessible.

Indeed, India had been a victim of bio-piracy for a long time, but its intensity has peaked after the signing of the Marrakesh Agreement, particularly the component related to trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs). This required each country to protect its genetic resources and traditional knowledge through suitable patent legislation conforming to globally acceptable norms.

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* Contributed by: -
Dr. R. P. Verma,
Ex. H.O.D. & Dean, Commerce and Business Management Dept.,
Arabinda Bhandari,
Strategic Management Researcher,
Ranchi University, Ranchi.