Blocking the road to biopiracy is the ambitious objective of the historic meeting which opens at the UN to conclude a treaty aimed at combating the illegitimate appropriation of genetic resources (AFP/Fabrice COFFRINI)
Blocking the road to biopiracy is the ambitious objective of the historic meeting which opens Monday at the UN to conclude, after more than 20 years of negotiations, a treaty aimed at combating the illegitimate appropriation of genetic resources.
“This is a historic moment,” said Daren Tang, director general of the UN agency for intellectual property (WIPO), whose more than 190 member states will meet from May 13 to 24 to the final stage of negotiations.
The draft agreement aims to make the patent granting system more transparent.
“It is a question of fighting against biopiracy, that is to say the use of traditional knowledge or genetic resources without the agreement of those who held them and without them being able to benefit from them,” explained the head of the French delegation, Christophe Bigot.
Because if genetic resources as such, such as medicinal plants, plant varieties and animal breeds, are not patentable, the inventions based on them can be.
Cosmetic products, medicines, food supplements, there are numerous areas where, thanks to a patent, companies get their hands on a gene, a living species or traditional knowledge, denounce the NGOs, who cite the cases of Maca plants in Peru and Hoodia in South Africa, as well as Neem, also called Indian neem.
– Sanctions –
Victories, although difficult, exist, as with Neem. In 1995, the properties of this tree, used in India for thousands of years in agriculture, medicine and cosmetics, were the subject of a series of patents filed in particular by the American agrochemical giant WR Grace.
After ten years of fighting, the opponents’ campaign ended in success when the European Patent Office withdrew a patent for the first time on the grounds of “biopiracy”.
The draft treaty stipulates that patent applicants will be required to disclose the country of origin of the genetic resources of the invention and the indigenous people who provided the associated traditional knowledge (AFP/Archives/DIPTENDU DUTTA)
The draft treaty stipulates that patent applicants will be required to disclose the country of origin of the genetic resources of the invention and the indigenous people who provided the associated traditional knowledge.
Opponents fear it will hamper innovation. For its supporters, “this will help ensure that this knowledge and resources are used with the permission of the countries or communities from which they come, allowing them to benefit in one way or another from the resulting inventions “, according to Wend Wendland, director of WIPO’s Traditional Knowledge Division.
“Although the new instrument does not create new rights, its adoption would conclude more than two decades of negotiations on an issue of great importance to many countries,” he said.
WIPO hopes that countries can find consensus.
Disagreements persist, notably on the establishment of sanctions and the conditions for revoking patents.
“The text has been considerably reduced in order to reach a possible compromise,” Viviana Munoz Tellez, an expert at the South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank representing the interests of 55 developing countries, told AFP.
– Overcoming North/South clashes –
The draft agreement has a “symbolic value because it would be the first time that a (legal) instrument on intellectual property would refer to traditional knowledge,” explains Ms. Munoz Tellez. “But it will also have a direct effect by bringing more transparency”, even if it does not solve all the problems, she observed.
More than thirty countries have disclosure requirements, most of them developing countries, including China, Brazil, India and South Africa, but also European countries, including France, Germany and Switzerland. But these procedures vary and are not always mandatory.
More than thirty countries have disclosure requirements, most of them developing countries (AFP/Archives/BEN STANSALL)
“It is important to move beyond clashes that are too sterile” between the North and the South, noted a diplomatic source.
“Several countries in the North have genetic resources, like Australia or France, and several countries in the South have very large laboratories and companies that use genetic resources, like India or Brazil,” she said. added.
Two years ago, the countries unexpectedly decided to convene a conference in order to conclude an agreement no later than 2024. Only the United States and Japan had “officially dissociated themselves from the decision”, without however oppose the consensus.
“We hope that the results of the diplomatic conference will be clear, reasonable and practical to apply,” the Japanese representation in Geneva told AFP.
© 2024 AFP
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