Traditional Social Knowledge: Issues and Challenges in Patenting

Abstract

The traditional social knowledge is the basis of any society. It is the part of the wealth and heritage of any nation. Traditional knowledge is passed on from one generation to the other. And going through the generations, it gets challenged, experimented, adopted, applied and absorbed to become a social knowledge. It gets patronised many a times by the indigenous societies to take the shape of traditions through the prevailing regimes. Many a times such practices over the period of time may get termed as primitive against the experimented scientific and technological advancements; and the rich knowledge embedded in traditions and cultures may get totally denounced or ignored or may get encroached upon. The threat of encroachment is reflected in misuse of it through obtaining patents presenting the old knowledge in new garbs. It is important that such references of ’Indigenous Scientific Tempers’ and ’Social Knowledge’ are ?Protected and Preserved? against the ’Patenting Regimes’. Many a times the developing countries remain at the receiving end due to lack of technology and fight for patents. Various applications are either cancelled of withdrawn or the claims are amended by the international patent offices. As for example in case of turmeric, which without doubt is indigenous social knowledge and therapeutic usage of Turmeric for its healing and antiseptic properties is age old in Indian culture, but had to be experimentally proved to be considered as our traditional knowledge by US patent offices. To publish and document the social knowledge is a challenging task. The present study puts light on various such aspects of traditional knowledge and scientific temper by taking case studies from India thereby discussing the patent issues to draw the inferences from the study for further applicability.