Back to the Future: Intellectual Property Rights and the Modernisation of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Back to the Future: Intellectual Property Rights and the Modernisation of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Bryan Bachner

ISBN 1–84113–571–2
Hart Publishing

This Chinese proverb provides an appropriate starting point for an essay sceptical of conventional claims that modern approaches to intellectual property rights present the most effective methods to promote innovation
and growth in the field of biotechnology, as it relates, in particular, to traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). This paper examines the processes that govern the control, use and treatment of Traditional Chinese Medicine
(TCM) as a case study to evaluate the impact that the application of intellectual property rights has on TEK. The wealth of literature that examines the effect of intellectual property rights on TEK today and the relative absence
of any similar consideration on TCM, perhaps the most globally relevant, culturally important, commercially valuable and medically significant resource, underlines the pertinence of such a study.