India to publish encyclopedia to stop IP theft

By agencies   |   Monday, 05 December 2005, 20:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India is publishing a bulky encyclopedia, running into 30 million pages, which would extensively cover its vast traditional knowledge as part of efforts to keep out Intellectual Property invaders from patenting its indigenous wealth. Work on the book, which would be in electronic format, is progressing at a feverish pace and already one-third of it has been completed. "Ten million pages have been digitized," Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Ajay Dua said. The work, christened Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), seeks to repel attempts by people abroad to patent traditional Indian knowledge, be it yoga or medicine systems like ayurveda. "Even as this exercise (TKDL) is going on, 150 yoga asanas (postures) have been patented abroad...134 of these asanas were granted patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office," Dua said "Close to 1,500 (postures) have been given trademark (elsewhere)," he said, but added that this was not the mistake of patent offices abroad. While traditional knowledge has been in public domain in India in various vernacular languages, the same was not accessible by patent examiners abroad, he noted. The book would help examiners crosscheck on whether an application for patent is an original innovation or a copy of what already exists in other parts of the world, in this case India.