India identifies 1,07,000 traditional knowledge products

New Delhi, Sep 29 (UNI) India will soon put up on the Internet names of 1,07,000 Traditional Knowledges (TKs) belonging to the country and which cannot be patented by anyone in the world, Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Ajay Dua said today.

''Work on digitalising 1,07,000 TKs is complete and the Cabinet approval obtained. The names of these TKs would soon be put up in the digitised format,'' Dr Dua told newspersons here.

India along with China has a huge reservoir of TKs and is keen to protect the same from the increasing threat of bio-piracy, especially in the West. Once the exhaustive list is available on the net, bio-piracy would stop. ''Nobody would be able to get patents for things like turmeric and bittergoud,'' he said.

Work on the mammoth project had started seven years ago by the Ayush wing of the Health Ministry. It involved sifting through several lakh pages of TKs in Indian vedas, which have all been digitalised.

Against each of the TKs, the name of the original developer etc has been shown. Anyone in the world who wants to make use of these TKs, would need to get in touch with the original developer and seek permission for using the same on a ''benefiting-sharing'' basis, Dr Dua said.

In his presentation at the 42nd General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), held recently at Geneva, the DIPP Secretary said the development and the IPR harmonisation agenda need not be separated. ''The development agenda is important for countries like India and China. Both are rich in traditional knowledge,'' he said.

Dr Dua made a strong pitch to revive the dialogue on mainstreaming development into the entire agenda of the organisation. Hitherto, its emphasis has been on harmonisation and norm setting of IP laws and implementation-cum-enforcement related matters.

UNI PC PV KN1728