2010-11-25
Source: News24
Cape Town - Traditional knowledge is an invaluable resource and more efforts needs to be made to protect it from exploitation, a UWC expert has said.
"Attempts to provide protection for traditional knowledge have been pretty recent. It hasn't been a major priority," Bernard Martin told News24.
Martin said that ancient knowledge of local communities should be protected under intellectual property, especially in light of attempts by companies to claim South Africa's indigenous knowledge.
"We've had a couple of incidents where people have taken out our traditional knowledge."
He referred to the Hoodia plant which was known to the San people as an appetite suppressant. Pharmaceutical company Phytopharm was granted an exclusive patent for the commercial exploitation of Hoodia products without the knowledge or consent of the San people.
Paradigm shift
This case set a precedent for dealing with traditional knowledge in SA and Martin said that a paradigm shift is required when working out the practical details.
"The practicalities are difficult to deal with. Intellectual property fits foursquare in the individual paradigm and traditional knowledge fits in the collective paradigm. Until we accept that the collective model represents a possibility, we're never going to get this thing to work."
He said that traditional knowledge is part of intellectual property and this view is shared by other countries such as Brazil which has made demands that it receives a bigger share of the profits derived from patents taken out on plants found mainly in the Amazon rainforest.
"People opposed the approach adopted by the (South African) government in proposed legislation because it doesn't fit in accepted notions. My approach is that traditional knowledge forms part of intellectual property and Wipo (the World Intellectual Property Organisation) has been involved in this framework."
Politics
He rejected a suggestion that there was insufficient traditional knowledge within SA to warrant legislated protection, but added that politics played a major role in preventing stakeholders from talking.
"As long as government is perceived to be under attack, they will dig in their hells. We need a more co-operative approach by government and the traditional knowledge community so we can come up with the best solution.
Martin will make his presentation at the on intellectual property at the IPR Indaba 2010 on Friday and on Monday the Wipo summer school will be held at UWC.