Seminar on prevention of bio-piracy begins Tuesday

March 21st, 2011 - 6:42 pm ICT by IANS  

New Delhi, March 21 (IANS) With bio-piracy of genetic resources becoming an issue of great concern, India is hosting an international conference starting Tuesday to discuss protection of traditional knowledge.

The three-day international conference on “Utilisation of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) as a Model for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge” will see participation of more than 40 countries.

The seminar will discuss India’s pioneering Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) for protection of traditional knowledge.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialised agency of the UN, has been collaborating with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for internationalising TKDL for the benefit of developing countries.

“Misappropriation of traditional knowledge and bio-piracy of genetic resources are the issues of great concern for all the developing countries. These issues are being pursued at several multilateral forums but there is a need for a global framework for traditional knowledge protection system,” said an official statement issued by the CSIR.

India is the only country in the world to have set up an institutional mechanism - TKDL, to protect its traditional knowledge and to prevent grant of wrong patents.

The TKDL technology integrates diverse disciplines (Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha), languages (Sanskrit, Arabic, Urdu, Persian and Tamil), modern science and modern medicine.

Today, through TKDL, India is capable of protecting about 226,000 medicinal formulations similar to those of neem and turmeric.

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