Diplomatic Conference on Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge

Across the ages and around the world, people have depended on genetic resources in their environment to improve their lives. More recently, genetic resources have also been building blocks for many inventions in the life sciences – medicines, climate-smart food crops, and other products that have allowed for massive, population-wide health, climate, and food security gains.

The quest for increased use of genetic resources has raised a concern that some patents are granted for inventions based on those resources and their associated traditional knowledge that do not fulfill patentability requirements, such as novelty and inventiveness.

The Basic Proposal for an "International Legal Instrument Relating to Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge Associated with Genetic Resources" seeks to, according to the text, "enhance the efficacy, transparency and quality of the patent system with regard to genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources" and help "prevent patents from being granted erroneously for inventions that are not novel or inventive with regards to genetic resources and traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources".

One of the conditions for a patent to be granted and an invention to be protected is the description by the applicants of specific information about their invention in the patent application. Disclosing the invention in detail is a core principle of patent law.

Inventors must explain their invention in sufficient detail so that following the technical explanation, someone with the same level of knowledge can reproduce the invention.

Mandatory disclosure requirements indicate the elements that must appear in the patent application.

A central element of the proposed instrument is a mandatory disclosure requirement for patents relating to genetic resources and their associated traditional knowledge. When innovators file their patent application, they would have to disclose the country of origin or the source of the genetic resource(s) if their invention is materially/directly based on that (those) genetic resource(s).

If the invention is materially/directly based on traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources, the innovator would have to disclose the Indigenous Peoples or local community(ies) that provided such knowledge or its source.

After almost two decades of negotiations, during the 2022 WIPO General Assembly, the organization's governing bodies' annual meeting, member countries decided to fast-track negotiations on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge by organizing a high-level negotiating event (Diplomatic Conference) to agree on an international agreement no later than 2024.

• Is an international agreement on IP, GRs and associated TK finally in sight?
• International Negotiations on Indigenous Knowledge to Resume at WIPO: a View of the Journey So Far and the Way Ahead

In the beginning, some 20 years ago, the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) was not working on creating international norms. Many countries then began to push for work on international legal instruments on genetic resources, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions (folklore). From 2010, WIPO members started to discuss the potential textual content of what could become one or several legal instruments.

After 2012, options for a new patent disclosure of genetic resources and their associated traditional knowledge requirement emerged, and negotiations intensified on this question.

However, it was difficult for negotiators to agree on a consensual text; by 2018, there was a deadlock. In 2019, the then IGC Chair, Ian Goss, took it upon himself to prepare a draft text on genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. Pursuant to the 2022 WIPO General Assembly decision, this text became the basic proposal and will serve as a basis for the upcoming negotiations at the Diplomatic Conference in May 2024.

As far as we are aware, disclosure requirements related to genetic resources (and often associated traditional knowledge) have as of March 2024 been implemented in 33 countries and regional organizations.

Individual countries: Belgium, Brazil, Burundi, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Samoa, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uganda, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, and Zambia) .

Any Member State of WIPO may become a party to the new instrument. Further, the governing body of the instrument, the Assembly, can admit intergovernmental organizations to become parties under several conditions.