On the Intellectual Property Protection of Traditional Knowledge

Author: Yan Yonghe
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: The current intellectual property law, from its inception in the 15th century to the modern era, faces two major challenges: one from the field of high technology and the other from the "historical" domain. Traditional knowledge represents an ancient challenge from the "historical" domain that the current intellectual property law confronts at the intersection of the old and new centuries. Traditional knowledge is ancient and mostly publicly available, with unclear rights holders, making it fundamentally incompatible with the requirements of current intellectual property law and thus difficult to protect under it. The research in this book aims to argue for the justification of intellectual property protection for traditional knowledge, determine the intellectual property protection strategy for traditional knowledge, explore the institutional composition of intellectual property protection for traditional knowledge, and ultimately serve the intellectual property interests of traditional communities in their traditional knowledge. In a narrow and strict sense, traditional knowledge is the sum of knowledge, techniques, skills, and experiences created by traditional communities and indigenous peoples over a long period of production and daily life. This book pioneers the creative proposal of an intellectual property interest structure composed of derivative intellectual property interests, negative intellectual property interests, and positive intellectual property interests. It analyzes and constructs the framework of the intellectual property protection system for traditional knowledge. The intellectual property protection framework for traditional knowledge proposed by the author is logically rigorous and well-argued, and should hold significant theoretical and practical implications.