PATENTS In/Sight
In the 12th century and again in the 17th century, Western European researchers sought out ancient Greek and Roman texts. Their contents provided a knowledge base as Western Europe began to develop its own technological and philosophical culture. As anyone who has taken high school geometry can attest, strong Greek influence persists in the Western world to this day.
During those times, little information was available in Western Europe about the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of less accessible preceding cultures. That is now changing. The difference from the previous renaissances, is that the originating cultures, such as China, India, and aboriginal cultures, still exist, and have a proprietary pride in their accumulated knowledge and wisdom.
A current example is in the field of medicine. India has, at government expense, developed a database of medicines which have been known in India for hundreds of years. The thirty million page database has been provided, by India’s initiative, to the European Patent Office. It is being used by the European Patent Office to reject modern patent applications for the traditional Indian medicinal formulations.
The Chinese government has similarly created a database of 12,000 traditional Chinese medications and provided it to the European Patent Office for use as prior art.
The purpose of sharing this information with the world’s patent offices is to prevent what is sometimes called “bio-piracy”. Cultures which originated these medications want the credit for having done so, and object to what they consider to be the misappropriation of their heritage by others.
For more information about these initiatives, here are a couple of links to start you off.
http://www.epo.org/topics/issues/traditional.html
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100427/jsp/nation/story_12384397.jsp
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