After a week-long conference, the World Intellectual Property Organization said Friday that it wanted to draw up international standards but didn't know what form they would take or when they would be ready. For hundreds of years, scientists have tapped jungles, rainforests, deserts and farms in Latin America, Africa and Asia, to develop new agricultural products and modern medicines. The process of collecting genetic resources, known as ''bioprospecting,'' is nothing new. But it has increased hugely over the past 20 years thanks to dramatic advances in genetic engineering that allow scientists to more easily manipulate active compounds in plants, soils and fungi. Similarly, there has been an upsurge in interest in so-called traditional knowledge acquired and improved over countless generations Chinese medicine to name just one example.
Some countries already have strict rules, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Traditional Chinese medicine has been covered by a special patent law since 1993 and at the end of 1998, Chinese medicines were the subject of 9,900 patent applications, according to WIPO documents. Now, that may not sound like very much. It really signifies a desire to view the knowledge economy in a comprehensive and inclusive manner and not just as the Western knowledge economy but a knowledge economy which will include traditional knowledge,'' he said. He said it was unclear whether there would be binding rules or just guidelines for governments, companies and indigenous people. International opinion is divided on the subject.