Governance and Micropolitics of Traditional ... - IPRsonline.org

There have been ongoing meetings attended by relevant academics and officials for the past
few years on the treatment of TK by the various departments. There have been suggestions for
the development of a more coordinated approach to TK promotion and protection and even
for a broader Traditional Knowledge Act, however it is likely that the development of such an
Act would be a long time in development (Indananda, Nantana. cited by Bangkok Post, 26 th
May 2005). The establishment of a single body would certainly help with the coherence,
transparency and clarification of registrations and databases.
A questionnaire was developed recently to survey attitudes to TK and folklore amongst
academics, NGOs and government body staff. It was distributed at a meeting on Traditional
Knowledge and Folklore (TK-FL) held on the 21 st April 2005 at Kasetsaart University. There
were 25 responses from 43 sets delivered.
The questionnaire 41 first indicated that there were broad interpretations of the terms
‘traditional knowledge’ and ‘folklore’ and thus significant disagreement about an appropriate
definition. The second question asked what TK-FL protection should be aimed at.
Respondents could give more than one answer. The highest response was to ‘prevent people
from inappropriately taking advantage of TK-FL, followed by the ‘restoration and promotion
of TK-FL’, and the ‘preservation of TK-FL for broader social benefits’. Economic reasons
factored in further down the list.
The survey also indicated that the majority of respondents were concerned about the use of
IPRs to protect TK (most thought that IPRs were insufficient for TK-FL protection), but
where it is used they predominantly indicated that it should be to stop exploitation or use
without permission, and to protect personal or community rights that have created and
preserved the TK-FL.
Protection mechanisms favoured included a sui generis mechanism as the most favoured
means of TK-FL protection, followed by databases, and then a few respondents agreed with
contracts on access and benefit sharing. They also indicated that in cases where some form of
TK-FL protection has been provided the rights owner should be the creator, developer or
author (where it can be proved), as well as communities (where it is shared knowledge). This
was closely followed by responses indicating it should be overlapping systems of rights such
as the TTMI Act which has some rights allocated to individuals, some to communities, and
some to the state.
The questionnaire, although only a small sample set, provides an insight into the current
aspirations for TK-FL protection and promotion. The array of responses to each question
highlights the complexity of the issues, for which adequate solutions often appear to be
dependent upon highly specific circumstances. This poses a problem for developing a broad
Traditional Knowledge Act, or for developing some other framework of protection.
Traditional knowledge databases have also been discussed in the ongoing meetings, for which
some already exist, however they are generally poorly coordinated and are not yet widely
known about by the public. Members of the public have been urged to register traditional
knowledge with a database in the Department of Intellectual Property, however only 3750
have been listed since 2002 compared with more than 130,000 in similar databases in India
41 This information comes from: TK-FL Working Group (2005) A summary of the questionnaire on traditional
knowledge and folklore protection. Unpublished document, distributed at a subsequent TK-FL meeting.
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