Protecting Intellectual Property in Thai Traditional Medicine

Abstract

At the end of the twenty century the problem of traditional knowledge and genetic resources protection is widely discussed in national and international levels. This interesting issue has long been debated between developing and developed countries. Developing countries claimed that developed countries have misused of their traditional knowledge and genetic resources without their consent, which is considered a form of biopiracy. On the other hand, developed countries argued that such traditional knowledge and genetic resources is in the public domain, and thus it is not biopiracy. Presently, it is generally recognised, and known, that the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources has been debated in international forums, such as the WIPO and the WTO. In this regard several developing countries have to find the appropriate legal mechanisms to protect their own resources. The existing intellectual property rights regimes, a new form of intellectual property rights or a sui generis system, have been debated for the protection of traditional knowledge. It is widely recognised that the existing intellectual property rights regimes are not appropriate to protect all subsets of traditional knowledge, even though it can be useful for the protection of some forms of traditional knowledge. It is fact that several biopiracy cases concerning traditional medicines, such as Neem, Turmeric, Ayahuasca and Kwao Kruae, involved acquisition of intellectual property rights without compensation for the traditional knowledge holders. The cases demonstrate that the lack of protection of traditional medicine, as a subset of traditional knowledge, poses a significant problem on international and national levels. This thesis explores the protection of traditional medicine in both significant international instruments and national laws.