What Do Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions Have to Do with Intellectual Property Rights?

• Author: J. Janewa Osei-Tutu
• Position: Janewa Osei-Tutu is an associate professor of law at Florida International University College of Law in Miami, where she teaches contract law and a variety of intellectual property law courses. She can be reached at joseitutu@fiu.edu.
• Pages: 22-27

Published in Landslide® magazine, Volume 9, Number 4 , a publication of the ABA Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL), ©2017 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This

information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.

By J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Who can claim a right to yoga, to the use of the Hoodia cactus plant for weight

loss, or to the use of turmeric for healing?1 Should commercial entities be able

to use the designs and names of indigenous groups to market their products?2

Some consider this to be the “common heritage of mankind,” but not everyone agrees. In

particular, the communities that generate this knowledge consider it to be part of their cul-

tural heritage.3 The ongoing debate about traditional knowledge and traditional cultural

expressions in relation to intellectual property centers on whether the knowledge and cul-

tural representations of indigenous and local peoples, as well as their names, are free for all

to use—even for commercial enterprises seeking to prot from the use. Traditional knowl-

edge, as will be explained in more detail below, refers to intergenerational knowledge and

practices that pertain to an identiable community.

What Do Traditional

Knowledge and

Traditional Cultural

Expressions Have

to Do with

Intellectual

Property Rights?