• DR.P.BRINDA

‘Traditional knowledge’ refers to the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities around the world. Traditional knowledge (TK) not only plays an important role in vital areas such as food security, the development of agriculture and medical treatment but also on cultural values. Biological resources and related traditional knowledge are often of great commercial value to business corporations in developing commercial products. IPRs are based on the protection of individual property rights and these are also exclusive rights of the owner. But traditional knowledge is generally held by tribes, nations and different independent communities. The use and the sharing of this knowledge is guided and regulated not by any individual but by complex collective systems and customary laws of traditional communities. Even if the knowledge is held by any individual, the right to use that knowledge vests collectively as per their customary law. The IPR system seeks to privatize ownership and is designed to be held by individuals or corporations. But the ownership upon traditional or indigenous knowledge is collective. The fundamental defect in existing national and international IPRs regime is that it has failed to acknowledge and recognize the customary laws and systems developed and used by traditional people to protect, safeguard and perpetuate their heritage and traditional knowledge. The TKDL has monitoring mechanism for protecting TK from biopiracy of patent applications related to Indian medicinal systems. It enables effective detection of attempts to misappropriate this knowledge by third parties filing applications with patent offices around the world. Indeed it is evident that the concept of benefit sharing helps the corporates to exploit the TK of communities but on the other hand the benefit share for the community is a fallacy. This paper is an attempt to analyse the Indian and International protection available to Traditional Knowledge.

Traditional knowledge, benefit sharing, biopiracy

"BENEFIT SHARING: WHETHER REALLY MEANS SHARING OF BENEFITS? – A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.20-28, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907906.pdf

"BENEFIT SHARING: WHETHER REALLY MEANS SHARING OF BENEFITS? – A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp20-28, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1907906.pdf