Scope of research in Traditional Medicines, TKDL and beyond
Developed from experience gained over the centuries and adapted to the local culture and environment, Traditional Knowledge/Traditional medicinal practices were transmitted orally from generation to generation. It tends to be collectively owned and takes the form of stories, songs, folklore, proverbs etc. attached to cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws and local language. Research in Traditional Medicines shall be encouraged for the better understanding of the mechanism of action of drugs being used, chemical reactions happening during its processing by the body, active principles responsible for the particular action of the drug and the identification of the molecules responsible for toxicity reduction etc. The potential portfolios of research include standardization of various drugs, modifications in the ?form? and ?route? of drug administration, enhancement of shelf-life of the drug, quality standards of drug production, and innovations in processing, packaging, storage, transport, delivery etc. There is no bar on the researchers to take out a patent on the substantially improved version of Traditional Knowledge or on development of new drugs based on Traditional Medicine principles. However misappropriation of Traditional Knowledge by private business outfits has become quite rampant nowadays, owing to the vulnerability of it being ?passed off? as inventions. Though “Intellectual Property” does not include “knowledge” in the strict sense, plenty of patents have already been taken on Traditional Knowledge (Especially Traditional Medicines). Of course, there are a few sagas of successful revocation of some of those patents, but at the cost of exchequer. In the recent past, CSIR India has been engaged with creating a traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL), a database that will serve as “prior art” against any move to register patents based on Traditional Knowledge. While the codification of Traditional Knowledge in to Digital Libraries and sharing it with patent offices is a viable solution to direct misappropriation, it is feared that such digital libraries may serve as a platter for capitalists looking for private appropriation of improvements on such traditional knowledge that is not accessible otherwise. It is hard for the Patent offices to keep the contents of TKDL secret from third parties, since no patent could be denied without disclosing the entire gamut of coded TK associated with the invention to the claimant. Patent Examiner can limit the scope of a patent claim or reject it altogether, only if he/she gives the relevant extract from TKDL to the inventor to show that it is a ?prior art?. It is going to be a great opportunity for the fraudsters to file patent applications purely on conceptual grounds (which would look like as if they had performed the invention), only to see that they could fetch the authentic information on a TK practice/product. It is debatable whether TKDL stops Bio-piracy or facilitates it.
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