Our previous articles on Traditional Knowledge with respect to Neem and Haldi, showcased the legal fights put up by India for the preservation of traditional knowledge. Throughout, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research stood rock solid, however, there was a big amount of money and energy spent. As a result, researchers came up with the idea of a permanent institutionalized effort instead of the earlier eleventh-hour rush. There was no point in fighting over the patent and preserving our fundamental right of intellectual property. Moreover, such issues were hidden for normal vision.
Read : Neem Ki Shakti – Intellectual Property of India
When any patent office grants patent to any particular discovery, it tests the patent from all dimensions and parameters. There is a facility of finding novelty, non-obviousness and industrial usage to reject the patent. These tests are conducted with the help of a huge database. But such a database was not available in the context of the Indian Traditional Knowledge regime. For instance, a person sitting and researching in any country outside India would not able to find out what is written in any pedagogic document in Ratnagiri. This created a lot of trouble for Indian scientists in the case of Neem and Haldi.
Read : The Battle of Haldighati – India’s Fight for Traditional Knowledge
The true revolution began under Dr. V. K. Gupta with the beginning of the Traditional Digital Knowledge Library. The CSIR and AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) department started this task with complete dedication. A team of almost 200 experts including linguists, botanical experts, patent examiners, Information Technology experts, experts in Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha, studied more than 300 words in the next eight years. Through the reading of books in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Farsi and Arabic, they found out almost 22 lakhs medical treatments. These were translated into English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish. The whole information was classified for the convenience of the patenting system. With different agreements, this information was made available to U.S.A, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia.
The 21st century has surely proven to be a sort of dawn for the Traditional Knowledge regime of India. One such initiative is the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), which is a spearhead move by India to prevent misappropriation of the country’s traditional knowledge by western countries.
TKDL technology encompasses a variety of disciplines and languages such as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Yoga, Sanskrit, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Tamil, English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, modern science and modern medicine. TKDL acts as a connection between these books (prior-art) and International Patent Examiners. It is the TKDL technology which created a unique mechanism for a Sanskrit verse to be read in languages like German, Japanese, English, Spanish and French by an examiner at any International Patent Office.
At present, as per the approval of Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, access to TKDL is available to 9 International Patent Offices (European Patent Office, United State Patent & Trademark Office, Japan Patent Office, United Kingdom Patent Office, Canadian Intellectual Property Office, German Patent Office, Intellectual Property Australia, Indian Patent Office and Chile Patent Office), under TKDL Access (Non-disclosure) Agreement.
TKDL is proving to be an efficacious deterrent against bio-piracy and is being recognized as a global leader in the area of traditional knowledge protection. For instance, in 2011, an International Conference was organized by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in collaboration with CSIR on ‘Utilisation of Traditional Knowledge Digital Library as a Model for Protection of Traditional Knowledge’, at New Delhi. Pursuant to this, WIPO in collaboration with CSIR and DIPP (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) organized an ‘International Study Visit To TKDL’ for 19 countries interested in the replication of TKDL.
In today’s context, the responsibility of TKDL goes up as technological advancement has brought the world closer. Traditional Knowledge can be accessed by any source and this is very helpful for any type of bio-piracy. Hence, initiatives like the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library gain a very high magnitude.
| The list of books from which knowledge is currently available in the TKDL database is listed below differentiated by the Indian traditional system of medicine: |
| Discipline | No. of texts (including volumes) used for transcription |
| Ayurveda | 119 |
| Unani | 55 |
| Siddha | 91 |
| Yoga | 15 |
| Total | 280 |
A few years back India successfully challenged the mouth wash and herbal toothpaste patents on nutmeg which were filed by Coalgate Palmolive. This time, however, the process was not very energy seeking neither time nor money consuming. The Traditional Digital Knowledge Library was the sole cause behind this. Any attempt of biopiracy is shown via this database. Moreover, this database is used only for references and is not a guide for something new.
With the advent of TKDL, there is a sharp decrease in the patent granting on Indian traditional knowledge. Many patents given earlier are rejected later.
With the promulgation of the Forest Act, 2002, the Tribal people in the jungle are owners of the intellectual property that is related to that particular forest product. If a person outside India wants to file a patent on traditional knowledge of India, he has to seek permission from the National Biodiversity Authority of India. The authority can demand a royalty for the Tribal people in the forests. It has definitely produced conclusive evidence for the legal fraternity to fight for patent battles.
