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India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL): A powerful tool for patent examiners
On 2 February 2009 the Indian government granted access to its Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), a unique database that houses the country’s traditional medical wisdom, to examiners at the European Patent Office (EPO).
EPO examiners will use the extensive database to prevent attempts at patenting existing traditional knowledge, a practice described as "bio-piracy".
The co-operation between India and the EPO comes at a time when many countries are struggling to protect traditional and respected knowledge against exploitation, primarily in the pharmaceutical sector.
"We take this seriously. Countries with rich traditional and holistic knowledge often have to spend lots of money on opposition procedures. The database could prevent that by helping the EPO to grant properly scoped patents", said Paul Schwander, Director of Information Acquisition at the EPO.
An improved patent granting process
Experts at the EPO say that access to the 30-million-page database will help to correctly examine patent applications relating to traditional knowledge.
"With the TKDL, examiners have improved access to background information at an early stage of patent examination", Schwander said. "In the old scenario, a patent may have been granted and the countries had to present evidence against it after the fact".
Prominent cases of patent disputes include a US patent on the wound-healing properties of turmeric (revoked in 1997) as well as an anti-fungal product from the Indian Neem tree (revoked in 2008). Both herbal practices were evidence of traditional knowledge and the patents were rescinded.
In both instances, the Indian government needed to prove that the patented methods were not novel and were based on traditional knowledge. The process to challenge the granted patents proved lengthy and cumbersome as some traditional knowledge had only been documented in Sanskrit or other ancient writings and thus required extensive translation.
With the advent of the TKDL however, the once onerous process has been transformed into an organised and objective system. The texts, many of which are hundreds of years old, offer extensive details about ancient medical practices and can now be accessed digitally.
Moreover, the TKDL has translated these texts - first written in Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Urdu - into English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish, granting easier accessibility to examiners.
A unique encyclopaedia
The TKDL is the result of a US$ 2 million joint project between five Indian government organisations, including the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the National Institute of Science Communication and Informative Resources (NISCAIR).
Under the direction of Vinod Kumar Gupta, the head of NISCAIR, more than 150 experts in traditional medicine, law and computer science spent the past ten years arranging and classifying the TKDL.
Highlights of the vast database include:
- 54 authoritative textbooks on ayurvedic medicine
- Nearly 150,000 ayurvedic, unani and siddha medicines
- Over 1,500 physical exercises and postures in yoga, more than 5,000 years old
Protecting prior art
The TKDL allows examiners to compare patent applications with existing traditional knowledge. New patent applications need to demonstrate significant improvements and inventiveness compared to prior art in their field. If the medical use of an herb is a traditional practice, and thereby public knowledge, it is considered prior art under EPO regulations.
"Even if a treatment is only available in Sanskrit in an Indian library, it belongs to the prior art because it had been disclosed openly in the public domain at an earlier point in time", Schwander said.
If a company seeks to patent the medicinal use of an herb listed in the TKDL, EPO examiners conduct a thorough investigation. "In some cases this will lead to a reduction of the scope of the patent or its refusal", Schwander said.
However, the company may still be granted a patent on a new method for industrial-scale production of the active ingredient of the herb, for example, if this process is new and inventive, Schwander explained.
"The public may perceive this as bio-piracy, but there is a difference. The patent applicants would not claim ownership of the active ingredient itself. The scope would then be limited to a method of producing or isolating the ingredient".
Shedding light on gray areas
The TKDL is so precise that it lists the time, place and medium of publication for prior art. This new catalogue system, called the Traditional Knowledge Resource Classification (TKRC), ensures meticulous documentation.
The classification sheds light on what used to be considered gray area. Before the advent of the TKDL, any bio-prospector for a pharmaceutical company could dig up ancient medical wisdom and lay claim to the practice's healing ability without consequence.
Now, thanks to the TKDL, patent examiners can prove exactly when and where a medical treatment became public knowledge, stymieing would-be bio-pirates.
A collection aimed at Patent Offices
Examiners at the EPO will use secure access methods to work with the TKDL. To measure efficiency, the EPO will count cases in which the database proved helpful.
Other countries have also opened their digital archives on traditional medical knowledge to EPO patent examiners. In 2008, the Chinese patent office (SIPO) granted the EPO access to its 32 000-entry database on traditional Chinese medicine.
"It's a win-win situation for all involved. These databases help the EPO improve the relevance and content of prior art searches, while the countries holding traditional knowledge can protect their assets against misappropriation", Schwander said.