Comments on WIPO paper: “The protection of traditional knowledge: revised objectives and principles”

ICC supports initiatives to explore options for the protection of traditional knowledge, whether within the existing intellectual property framework or through development of new types of rights. However, ICC believes it is premature to take definitive positions on TK protection before having a clearer idea of what is included in this concept and how it is defined. Only when these points are clarified can an informed judgement be made as to whether there is a need for TK protection at an international level and what the scope of any such protection should be. To date, ICC has not reached any conclusion on these questions. ICC has raised a number of questions about TK protection in its paper ‘‘Protecting Traditional Knowledge”(12 January 2006)1. These questions for the most part have not yet been adequately addressed by the IGC.

ICC's view is that objectives, principles, policy options and legal mechanisms form a natural hierarchy.

Objectives must be broadly agreed before principles are settled: from these flow the policy and laws to implement them. In ICC's view, more discussion of objectives and a much greater measure of agreement about them is required before progress can be made. As ICC has maintained since the Committee was set up, the objectives to be reached must largely determine the form of the laws to implement them. Until consensus is reached on objectives, it is vain to expect progress. For these reasons, ICC limits its comments to the policy objectives of document WIPO/GRTKF/IC/9/5, and feels it is premature to update other sections of the document.