Bio-piracy and Traditional Knowledge.

Bio-piracy may be understood as the commercialisation of genetic or traditional knowledge of rural and indigenous people. There have been many attempts to patent traditional knowledge or ancient wisdom of indigenous communities. In 1995 such an attempt was made, when two Indian scientists tried to patent the medicinal use of Turmeric on wounds. The United States Patent and Trademark Office had granted patent to the claims of the two scientist but it was revoked when Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India opposed the patent.

The Ministry of Ayush and CSIR realizing the pertinent need for prevention of Bio-Piracy compiled a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, from various Indian languages to English, French, Japanese, etc.  India has made a few more attempts in protecting out traditional knowledge. The Aim of TKDL was to bring all such traditional and ancient knowledge into public domain so as to defeat any such attempt to patent any such ancient knowledge.

With Patent amendment in the year 2002, there was inclusion of Traditional knowledge being a ground for revocation of such granted patents. With the introduction of the Biodiversity Act of 2002, an attempt to curb such bio-piracy was made. The Biodiversity Act is based on the concept of “benefit sharing”. As according to TRIPS and Convention of Biological Diversity, biological resources are for the benefit of humanity. Thus the Biodiversity Act aims to provide benefit to the indigenous community or the rural community

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