Patent System

SouthViews No. 276, 29 October 2024

Can international law promote innovation from genetic resources and benefit sharing while recognizing the rights of traditional knowledge holders?

By Henry de Novion

Indigenous peoples and local communities have been innovating for millennia and contributing to the development of new products and processes. For international law to promote innovation, it is indispensable to promote indigenous peoples and local communities’ rights to prior informed consent, to benefit sharing, and to guaranteeing their territories, culture, and existence.

(more…)

SouthViews No. 260, 20 March 2024

Patent rights and misappropriation of traditional knowledge: the case of the Amazonian Mirantã

By Marcos Vinício Chein Feres

This article aims to understand whether there are any signs of misappropriation enabled by the international patent system in the case of associated traditional knowledge to Mirantã, a plant (genetic resource – GR) found in the Amazon Basin. There is clear correspondence between the traditional uses of Mirantã and patent claims found, which are, or may at least hint at, evidence of the misappropriation of traditional knowledge. More generally, this confirms the perspective of the existence of a coloniality of knowledge as in many jurisdictions, due to the lack of measures to protect traditional knowledge against misappropriation (e.g., via a disclosure requirement in patent applications), these patents are for now deemed valid.

(more…)