Questioning the Potential of the Forthcoming Wipo’s Diplomatic Conference on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources: Endless Negotiations Coming to a Successful End?

Marie-Denise Vane, Questioning the Potential of the Forthcoming Wipo’s Diplomatic Conference on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources: Endless Negotiations Coming to a Successful End?, 48 LSE L. Rev. (2023):

In July 2022, Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) agreed to hold a Diplomatic Conference no later than 2024 to conclude an international instrument on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. This recent development could bring to an end more than 20 years of negotiations on the matter by the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore. Indeed, genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge are left unregulated within the intellectual property system and open for misappropriation through Western intellectual property concepts like the public domain. As a result, indigenous and local communities have faced biopiracy and began to demand protection for their traditional knowledge. The draft instrument to be negotiated puts forward a new mandatory international standard of disclosure of origin in relation to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. Through an analysis of this proposal, this article questions its potential to become a successful tool to protect traditional knowledge related to genetic resources, reduce its misappropriation, and achieve transparency within the patent system. It will be argued that the proposed instrument may well represent a prudent compromise, but the protection it offers is neither effective nor inclusive and is lacking in ambition.