Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Gehl Sampath, Padmashree 
Author-Email: sampath@intech.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: United Nations University, Institute for New Technologies
Title: Defining an Intellectual Property Right on Traditional Medicinal Knowledge: A
	 Process-Oriented Perspective
Abstract: The focus of this paper is to find an operative definition of traditional
	 knowledge for purposes of drug research and development. Starting out with the
	 international debate on Art. 8(j) of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 1993
	 and the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, 1995,
	 it argues that the critical elements of any sui generis system should be rights'
	 definitions that clearly identify the nature of information that is to be protected
	 as traditional knowledge and the set of beneficiaries that are to exercise the
	 right. Using the theory of cumulative innovation in biotechnology-based
	 pharmaceutical research, the paper derives a justification for an intellectual
	 property right for traditional medicinal knowledge that is based on its actual/
	 potential contribution to pharmaceutical research. Such a right, apart from clearly
	 giving us the basis for demarcating communities/ groups of people who ought to
	 exercise it, also helps achieve three incentive effects - the incentive to reveal
	 information that is useful for the society at large, the incentive to keep such
	 knowledge pools intact and lastly, the incentive to conserve biodiversity. These
	 incentive effects provide us with a more robust basis to argue for a sui generis
	 right over traditional medicinal knowledge
Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights, Traditional Medicine, Pharmaceutical Industry,
	 Research and Development, Biotechnology, Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge
Series: Discussion Paper
Creation-Date: 2003
Number: 2003-04
File-URL: https://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/discussion-papers/2003-4.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 152 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unuint:200304