Page 20 - IB August 2024

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Delegates to the WIPO conference in Geneva celebrate the signing of the Treaty. Photo: Supplied
THE POWER OF A ‘TOOTHLESS TIGER’

By Rowena Singh intellectual property, inventions developed using them can -
most often through a patent.
Pacific Island experts have welcomed a new international Some genetic resources are also associated with traditional
treaty that aims to prevent biopiracy as a major step forward knowledge through their use and conservation by indigenous
in global efforts to protect indigenous intellectual property, peoples, as well as local communities, often over generations.
genetic resources and traditional knowledge. This knowledge is sometimes used in scientific research and,
There are, however, serious questions about its limitations, as such, may contribute to the development of a protected
with some experts calling certain provisions equivalent to a invention.
toothless tiger. They also ask Pacific Island countries will be It is the first WIPO treaty to address the interface between
able to contest cases of biopiracy in the international arena. intellectual property, genetic resources and traditional
knowledge. WIPO is a United Nations agency that enable
What does the treaty do? creators, innovators and entrepreneurs to protect and
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) member promote their intellectual property (IP) across borders and
states approved the treaty in May, after decades of acts as a forum for addressing cutting-edge IP issues.
negotiations that began in 2001, initiated in 1999 with a
proposal by Colombia. The treaty establishes in international The Pacific push
law, a new disclosure requirement for patent applicants The Pacific Community’s (SPC) Team Leader, Culture
whose inventions are based on genetic resources and/or for Development, Dr Frances Vaka’uta, a Pacific expert
associated traditional knowledge. on the treaty said it is a milestone for indigenous peoples
In strictly technical terms, it states that, “where a everywhere in the world, including the Pacific, as it provides
claimed invention in a patent application is based on for the first time, an international binding agreement for the
genetic resources, each contracting party shall require recognition and protection of traditional knowledge.
applicants to disclose the country of origin or source of the Vaka’uta said in the Pacific, early efforts began in this
genetic resources. Where the claimed invention in a patent direction in the late 1990s through the Secretariat of the
application is based on traditional knowledge associated Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), SPC, and
with genetic resources, each contracting party shall require the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), in collaboration
applicants to disclose the indigenous peoples or local with WIPO.
community, as applicable, who provided the traditional This has resulted in a regional policy environment that
knowledge”. “recognises in a meaningful way the role that culture can and
Based on that definition, the use of biological resources does play as an enabler for sustainable development, and
from a country, building patents, as well as producing them part of this is necessarily, the protection and safeguarding of
commercially, but not acknowledging the people it came from indigenous/traditional knowledge”, she said.
or the country of origin, is a form of biopiracy. A direct result was the 2002 Model Laws on Traditional
WIPO says genetic resources are contained in, for example, Ecological Knowledge, and the Regional Framework for
medicinal plants, agricultural crops, and animal breeds. While the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of
genetic resources themselves cannot be directly protected as Culture. Work on traditional knowledge and genetic resources

20 Islands Business, August 2024