The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recently published the "WIPO-UNEP study on the role of intellectual property rights in the sharing of benefits arising from the use of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge", prepared by A.K. Gupta. This 164-page publication uses 3 detailed case studies from Nigeria, India and Mali to consider the role of the existing intellectual property system in providing benefit-sharing mechanisms for local communities and individual innovators. The case study in Mali deals with a voluntary initiative for sharing benefits through the licensing, and possible commercialisation, of a cloned gene (Xa21) derived from a wild rice variety obtained from Mali, via international and national research centres. See http://www.wipo.int/tk/en/publications/769e_unep_tk.pdf or contact [email protected] for more information.

19/04/2006