New Delhi, 10 July (H.S.): India and Australia have signed a significant agreement on India's Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), marking a major step towards protecting India's traditional knowledge systems. The agreement was signed on Thursday during the third India–Australia Annual Summit in Melbourne in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

The Department of Science and Technology said on Friday that, with this agreement, the number of patent offices granted access to the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library has increased to 18 countries. The TKDL has so far helped facilitate the cancellation, rejection, amendment or withdrawal of more than 375 patent applications worldwide that were found to be based on India's traditional knowledge. The agreement will not only strengthen the protection of India's cultural and traditional heritage but also deepen bilateral cooperation between India and Australia in the field of intellectual property.

Under the agreement, the Australian Patent Office will now be able to access and use the TKDL database. Whenever an application is filed for a patent related to a new medicine, treatment or traditional knowledge, patent examiners will first verify the claim against the TKDL database to determine whether the knowledge already exists as part of India's documented traditional heritage. If the information is found to be part of the existing traditional knowledge, the patent application will not be granted.

The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library is a unique digital repository established in 2001 through a joint initiative of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Ministry of AYUSH. It was created to preserve India's traditional systems of medicine, including Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Sowa-Rigpa, and to prevent the wrongful granting of patents based on this pre-existing knowledge.

The database contains more than 520,000 documented traditional formulations and therapeutic practices. These records have been translated into several international languages, including English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish, enabling patent examiners across the world to accurately assess prior knowledge while examining patent applications.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar