Skip to main content

The Story of the Patenting of Life

The growth of "traditional knowledge" databases.

Date: 2000s

The Story of The Patenting of Life
MED
INDG
TFCM
RES

In order to prevent biopiracy, international funding increases to support the creation of databases of traditional knowledge. These databases are established in order to document a prior knowledge of plants, healing methodologies, and other forms of traditional wisdom in order to stop the private patenting of this generational knowledge. They include extensive plant medicine listings, as well as practices related to traditional Chinese, other Asian and Pacific Islander, Indian, Latin American, and African medicines.