Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property

This handbook aims to assist communities in understanding issues regarding intellectual property (IP) rights and provides exercises to help them identify and classify types of knowledge, cultural aspects, and community goals related to specific knowledge claims. Its goal is to help local communities understand and identify potential protection mechanisms already present in current intellectual property rights (IPRs) regimes and the public domain for traditional knowledge.

In addition to introducing some basic IP concepts, this handbook contains a series of exercises to help the reader identify traditional knowledge, classify that knowledge, and think about that knowledge in terms of the goals and interests of the entire community. The hope is that these exercises can help traditional knowledge holders identify whether or not IP options in the current paradigm are relevant and/or appropriate for their knowledge. Complementing each option are text boxes listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option, as well as the necessary criteria to follow through with that option. Case illustrations are used to facilitate a better understanding of each option or issue.

Development of the handbook comes out of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948. Article 27 of the Declaration states that everyone has the right “to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from anyscientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.”

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