Intellectual property rights with special reference to biodiversity management and sustainable development

Abstract

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have never been more economically and politically important and controversial than they are today. This is due to rapid introduction of high standards of protections of Intellectual Property Rights in most of the developing countries under the aegis of the WTO Agreement on Trade related aspects of the Intellectual Property rights (TRIPS Agreement). This issue is frequently mentioned in discussions and debates on such diverse topics as relating to biological resources, biotechnology, traditional knowledge, biopiracy, access and benefit sharing, transfer of technology, agriculture, food security and Public health. So IPRs have a number of socio-economic impacts which require the adoption of a broader perspective, which sees intellectual property protection within the context of sustainable development rather than purely in terms of economic development. The increasing economic importance of biological resources and the question of the ownership of these biological resources have made the allocation of Property Rights, as one of the most contentious issues in the debate concerning biodiversity management at the national and international level. IPRs are often granted to individuals of one country over genetic resources obtained from another country. Whereas the developing countries are host to most of the remaining biodiversity and consequently assert property rights over the actual resources while developed counties are host to most of the research capacity in the field of genetic engineering and are strongly in favour of the extension of monopolistic intellectual property rights to foster the commercial exploitation of biodiversity and related inventions These new developments have led to the emergence of new conflicts concerning the ownership of biodiversity and related knowledge, and have forced states to rethink intellectual property rights regimes in a fundamental way.