Genetic Resources: Draft Intellectual Property Guidelines for Access and Equitable Benefit Sharing (link)

Geneva, Sep 2004

Document prepared by the WIPO Secretariat
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OVERVIEW

1. Since its inception, the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore ('the Committee') has worked towards guidelines on the intellectual property (IP) aspects of mutually-acceptable terms in agreements that concern access to genetic resources and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of accessed resources. This work has been aimed at producing a resource, to alert custodians of genetic resources to the practical issues that arise when they elect to enter into agreements on access and benefit-sharing. The Committee's work has been based on an empirical survey of experience in this field, and a database collecting actual terms of agreements. As a first step, the Committee agreed on a set of guiding principles to frame this work, then oversaw the collection and analysis of practical experience in this area, and most recently considered a draft set of guidelines (WIPO/GRTKF/IC/6/5, submitted to the sixth session). It agreed to request further comments on these draft guidelines, so that a further draft could be prepared. The present document therefore provides the required update of this material for the further consideration of the Committee:

- the body of the present document provides background information, essentially reproducing the contents of document WIPO/GRTKF/IC/6/5, with minimal changes to reflect developments at the sixth session; and,

- the Annex provides updated guidelines, which incorporates various responses and comments received at the sixth session of the Committee and subsequently provided by Member States.

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