Committee Meetings

Work on Traditional Knowledge and Folklore Receives Broad Support

WIPO Member States, attending the June 6 to 10 meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) affirmed broad support for this key Committee's work on the protection of traditional knowledge (TK) and expressions of traditional culture/folklore (TCEs). They recommended that the WIPO General Assembly extend the IGC's mandate to continue this work.

The meeting opened with a panel, chaired by indigenous leader Stanley Jones of the Tulalip Tribes, during which indigenous and traditional community representatives from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Sweden, Ukraine, the United States of America and Zambia presented their communities' experiences and recommendations to the IGC. The IGC has agreed to begin each of its sessions with such an indigenous-chaired panel. The Committee accredited 12 more NGOs, raising to over 110 the number of NGOs specially accredited to the IGC. Many of these represent the interests of indigenous peoples or traditional communities. The IGC broadly supported a proposal for a WIPO Voluntary Contribution Fund to enhance the participation of representatives of indigenous and local communities in its work. The WIPO General Assembly will consider a revised version of this proposal.

TK and TCEs

The IGC reviewed sets of draft provisions outlining objectives and principles for the protection of TK and TCEs. The provisions aim to frame the policy and legal space for protection against misappropriation and misuse, and help define the legal measures for this protection. The approach to protection that is being explored would potentially apply indefinitely for TK and TCEs which are the products of intellectual activity, whether communal or individual, and which are characteristic of a community's cultural and social identity and cultural heritage. The principal beneficiaries would be communities in whom the custody of the TK or TCEs has been entrusted under customary law and who still maintain, use or develop them. The draft provisions are neutral as to legal form and could be used as a basis for a national or regional law, a recommendation, model provisions, a treaty or other form of outcome. Many WIPO Member States have called for the development of binding...