Traditional knowledge and intellectual property A handbook on issues and options for traditional knowledge holders in protecting their intellectual property and maintaining biological diversity by S. Hansen and J. VanFleet

Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2003)

The field of intellectual property rights is rapidly changing, with laws varying from country to country. This handbook is designed to make intellectual property protection issues and options more understandable to traditional knowledge holders, human rights organisations and legal professionals working with local and indigenous communities.
In addition to introducing basic intellectual property concepts, the handbook contains a series of exercises to help identify traditional knowledge, classify that knowledge, and think about that knowledge in terms of the goals and interests of the entire community.
Among the points highlighted are:

• Traditional knowledge is the information that people in a given community, based on experience and adaptation to a local culture and environment, have developed over time
• Intellectual property rights (IPRs) are the legal protections given to persons over their creative endeavours and usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation or discovery for a certain period of time
• Patents provide a legal monopoly over the use, production, and sale of an invention, discovery, or innovation for a specific period of time, usually about 20 years
• Traditional knowledge registries are official collections of documentation that describe traditional knowledge. Registries can be established and maintained either locally or outside the community itself
• The documentation of traditional knowledge is fundamental to both preserving this knowledge for current and future generations, as well as protecting IPRs
• A traditional knowledge claim contains three essential components, including, a genetic resource, a preparation or process, and an end result or product derived from a preparation or process.

[Adapted from author’s summary]

Full report available online at: www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC15530 or http://shr.aaas.org/tek/handbook/