State Courts

"Indigenous Groups Express Concerns On IP Protection Of Their Knowledge"

By The Blog Team

Le?a Malia Kanehe, a Native Hawaiian and legal analyst for the Indigenous People?s Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB), used genetic resources as an example: many people interpret indigenous calls for participation as meaning they want a hand in the commercialisation of genes extracted from their native lands, she said, but this is missing the point. What they want is the right not to own these things, she added.

Kanehe said Native Hawaiians believe the plants and the birds are their ancestors, and that they owe respect to them because they came first. She added: ?I can talk about bioprospecting in legal terms, but for this aspect of culture people just talk past each other.? As such, she said, the WIPO proposal of disclosing the origin of a genetic product does not go far enough towards protecting traditional knowledge.

Full post as published by Supreme Court of Hawaii Blog (Unofficial) on March 04, 2008 (boomark / email).