China, Russia back India on protecting traditional knowhow

NEW DELHI: China and Russia have backed India’s move to revive talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to strengthen global norms to protect traditional knowledge from bio piracy and reckless patenting by corporates.
The two major economic powers are among those that gave their goahead during a brainstorming session on the rampant commercial exploitation of natural products by obtaining patents without fairly compensating the communities from which these knowledges originate. “There was strong support for India's initiative on this issue from China, Brazil, Indonesia and Russia,” said an official in the know of the development.

While China has a keen interest in the subject, Brazil is said to be open to a plurilateral agreement on this issue. The United States, Korea and Japan are opposed to stronger norms to protect traditional knowledge and folklore. “Many options were suggested. Some were of the view that countries should go ahead even without the US,” the official added.

The session which took place on June 7-8, was led by India to revive discussions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to prevent theft of traditional knowledge. It was cosponsored by Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa.

Developing countries have sought mandatory disclosure of source or origin of biological resources and evidence of prior informed consent and benefit sharing from patent applicants to avoid exploitation of traditional knowledge.

They are pushing for an amendment to the WTO’s Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement to make these two disclosures mandatory.

However, the US, Japan and Korea have opposed this linking of the TRIPS agreement with the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) despite the Doha Ministerial Declaration in 2001which asked the TRIPS Council to examine the relationship between the two for the protection of traditional knowledge and folklore.

Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, the Africa Group, Peru and Thailand are the other countries advocating the need to revive talks on TRIPS and CBD.