India Wants WTO Protection for Traditional Knowledge from Biomaterials to Music

India is trying to organize developing nations to assure protection of traditional knowledge through the implementation of TRIPS (trade-related intellectual property rights) at the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong in December.

India is seeking support from South Africa and from Latin America, particularly Brazil, to amend the WTO's intellectual property provisions to accommodate rules from the Convention on Biological Diversity.

India, along with some other mega-biodiverse developing countries, is demanding a legally binding regime which would enjoin all WTO members to amend their IPR laws to include the following three principles: (a) Disclosure of country or origin of source of biological material or traditional knowledge; (b) Prior Informed Consent (PIC); and (c) Equitable Benefit Sharing (EBS), said Shri Anthony de Sa, India's joint secretary of the ministry of commerce and industry in an article online in Indlawnews.com.

India's Financial Express, in an article earlier in August, said the country's efforts to achieve intellectual property rights for traditional knowledge could apply to traditional music. In an aside, Financial Express noted that music such as that used in nada yoga, vedic chanting and ragachikitcha, has a therapeutic benefit on the mind and body.

[Click here for an article on music therapy in India.]

If implemented, the challenge would be documenting this knowledge.