One of the biggest achievements of us, the Homo sapiens, the humankind, has been the codifying of our knowledge. From the earliest storytellers who passed down knowledge orally by repeating what they heard to today´s monolithical databases available online, we have strived to gain, store, and distribute our knowledge.
We Sri Lankans, have a special place in the pantheon of knowledge gatherers.
From about the third century Before Common Era (BCE), Buddhist monks of the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya maintained chronicles of Sri Lankan history. About 800 years later, Monk Mahanama of Anuradhapura combined these non-canonical scriptures into one document and Buddhist monks continued to maintain this document continuously until the country was annexed by the British in 1815.
Tripitaka
Today, this document, the Mahawansa, is considered one of the world’s longest unbroken historical accounts.
We are also credited with recording the Tripitaka, the three baskets of Buddhist knowledge, Vinya, Sutta, and Abidhamma, at Alu Vihara cave temple in Matale, in the first century CE.
A lesser-known accomplishment of our knowledge gatherers and recorders is Sarartha Sangrahaya, said to have been written by physician King Buddhadasa (362 - 409 CE).
It contains a detailed account of the preparation of drugs, diagnosis, treatment of diseases, and Ayurveda surgery.
A particular ingredient that King Buddhadasa advocates to use in the treatment of several of these afflictions is a plant named “Kruradru,” or Kurundu, the long-standing common name used in Sinhala for Ceylon Cinnamon.
Relaxing on the eve of a two-day National Workshop held in the final week of April 2017 to discuss a draft of Sri Lanka National Policy on Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TK&TCE), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Assistant Director General Ambassador Minelik Alemu Getahun and the Director of the Traditional Knowledge Division of WIPO, Wend Wendland spoke to the Sunday Observer on the importance of securing these traditional knowledge data for future generations of Sri Lankans.
Tucking into a simple but tasty dish of lightly sautéed Kangkung, the signature dish of venerable beach Wadiya on the shorefront of Wellawatte, Wendland was commenting on why Sri Lanka is not moving fast enough to secure Geographical Indication (GI) status for Ceylon Cinnamon.
Geographical origin
A geographical indication (GI) is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation springing right from that origin. To be qualified as a GI, a sign must identify a product unequivocally as originating in a given place. Key Players of the Cinnamon industry have lobbied the Sri Lankan authorities to obtain GI registration for Ceylon Cinnamon in major consumer markets. However, lack of accompanying local regulations and the absence of a local register for GI is slowing down these efforts.
The government has authorized Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) to be the holder and protector of the Ceylon Cinnamon Certification mark and the Geographical Indications (GI) on behalf of Sri Lankan citizens.
The EDB also has the rights for the Ceylon Tea Certification Mark and is working on obtaining it for Ceylon Sapphire and more recently, Ceylon Pineapple.
According to Wendland, obtaining GI for Cinnamon will only be a first step in securing the rights for the traditional knowledge of Sri Lanka.
Patent
Treating diabetics with a mixture of cinnamon, garlic, and honey is part of the traditional heritage passed down from the time of King Buddhadasa. While India and several manufacturers in the West have rushed to patent cinnamon based treatments for diabetics, it was only last year that the Ministry of Primary Industries held the first ever symposium to determine the pharmacological efficacy of cinnamon.
However, while the initial intention was to develop a fully peer reviewed clinical trial to test how powerful cinnamon is in treating diabetics, with the participation of Colombo, Peradeniya, Jayewardenepura and the Colombo North Medical Faculty, industry observers say that the Ministry has diluted the effort and awarded a number of grants to different researchers who are duplicating earlier established research.
“If you have your traditional knowledge codified and accessible to patent investigators, pharma companies cannot violate your rights as prior art is there to prove that traditional medicine in Sri Lanka incorporated this ingredient in treating this disorder or disease,” Wendland said. Cinnamon is not the only ingredient traditional medicinal systems in Sri Lanka has used in the treatment of diabetics – Salacia reticulata or Kothala Himbutu is well established in Ayurveda literature as effectively improving insulin resistance, glucose metabolism and to reduce obesity. A Canadian company, OmniActive Health Technologies (Canada) , however, owns the patent for treating diabetics with Kothala Himbutu.
Social and cultural value
Wendland, a south-African born, cosmopolitan who has lived for more than two decades in Geneva, working for WIPO, is passionate about his work, even though he is dreaming of retiring soon “to be near a beach, to listen to the waves”.
Writing to the December 2015 issue of UBUNTU, published by South Africa´s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Wendland described how the traditional lifestyles and the rich ancestral heritage of the Kalahari desert dwellers, the San, were under threat in “an increasingly globalized, tech-connected world.”
“Indigenous knowledge has great social and cultural value in many communities, but may also provide new avenues for much-needed jobs and cash,” he wrote.
Quoting the San community leaders, Wendland says “the legal system turns a blind eye to corporate use of indigenous medicinal knowledge and to the misappropriation of traditional arts and music,” while pointing out that Peru, India, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia, Panama, Ghana, Tunisia, Thailand, the Cook Islands and Kyrgyzstan are some countries that have enacted legislation to try to curb the misappropriation of indigenous knowledge.
“But, the issues are not straightforward. The implications of introducing new property rights for age-old and often publicly available indigenous knowledge must be carefully thought through. Intangibles – such as inventions, stories, art, and music – are not the same as land and other tangibles. You can fence off a piece of land, but try fencing off ideas and artistic expressions!
This is why designing rules for the protection of intangibles, whether in the form of “modern” or “traditional” knowledge, is especially challenging. Balance is key – balance between the interests of communities, creators and innovators, and the general public,” Wendland argues.
Traditional knowledge (TK) is defined as knowledge, know-how, skills and practices that are developed, sustained and passed on from generation to generation within a community, often forming part of its cultural or spiritual identity.
According to WIPO, Innovations based on TK may benefit from patent, trademark, and geographical indication protection, or be protected as a trade secret or confidential information.
However, traditional knowledge as such - knowledge that has ancient roots and is often oral - is not protected by conventional intellectual property systems.
WIPO breaks down TK related IP issues into two key themes, Defensive and Positive protection. “Defensive protection refers to a set of strategies to ensure that third parties do not gain illegitimate or unfounded IP rights over TK.
Some countries and communities are also developing TK databases that may be used as evidence of prior art to defeat a claim to a patent on such TK. WIPO has developed a toolkit to provide practical assistance to TK holders on documenting TK.”, documentation from WIPO says.
One of the most outstanding examples of documenting previously disclosed traditional medical knowledge is the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) of India.
A collaborative project between the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, of India, the TKDL has been created to prevent the misappropriation of India ́s TK through international patenting activity.
According to WIPO documentation, “An inter-disciplinary team of traditional medicine (Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha) experts, patent examiners, IT experts, scientists and technical officers were involved in the creation of the TKDL. The TKDL project involves documentation of the codified Indian systems of medicine, which were publicly available in existing literature related to Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha, in digitized format in five international languages. The TKDL provides information on TK existing in the country, in languages and format understandable by patent examiners at International Patent Offices, so as to prevent the grant of wrong patents.”
Classification system
“Though the codified Indian systems of medicine was publicly available, since it existed in local languages, it was neither accessible to patent examiners at international patent offices nor could it be understood by them even in case of availability.
To break this language and format barrier, the TKDL was created. With the help of Information Technology tools and a novel classification system, i.e., Traditional Knowledge Resource Classification (TKRC), the TKDL makes the knowledge available to patent examiners in patent application format and in a language that can be understood by them.”
Using TKDL data, India has intervened to prevent over 300 registrations of patents globally, that attempted to commercially exploit traditional knowledge of India.
We have a proud and ancient history of being knowledge gatherers and recorders, however, until and unless we take the next step forward to properly codify the knowledge available to us, to translate that into accessible and searchable global language formats, Sri Lanka will be paying the price for the short-sightedness of our more recent leaders.