Mulan, a popular Disney animation based on the legendary Chinese folk character Hua Mulan, has grossed more than US$300 million worldwide since it debuted in 1998.

Hua Mulan is believed to have been born in Central China's Henan Province during the Sui Dynasty (AD 581 to 618).

In the Disney film, Hua Mulan voluntarily joins the army to release her old father from compulsory service. Disguised as a man, she rises to the rank of general.

The story is widely known in China and has inspired poetry, essays, operas and paintings for thousands of years.

Mulan melon seeds

Unlike the producer of the film "Mulan," the people of Yucheng, the birth place of Mulan, never received any real benefit from their famous ancestor until last year when they registered Mulan as the trademark of the local fried melon seeds. Although the Mulan trademark has helped boost the sales of the melon seeds, the local people, most of whom still live in poverty, have failed to make full use of their cultural heritage to develop the local economy.

"Traditional culture and knowledge such as folklore, music and medicine could be great resources for the development and protection of the local economy," says Yang Hongju, division head of the Legal Affairs Department of China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). "But for a long time, a large part of these resources has become the source of others' products without reasonable compensation."

According to SIPO, trademarks of many traditional Chinese brands such as Tongrentang (the name of a 300-year-old drug store) and Goubuli (the name of a 148-year-old Chinese snack producer) have already been registered by others in other countries. Many international pharmaceutical companies have obtained patents for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formulas based on their studies of TCM prescriptions and herbs. Medicines produced with those formulas and on sale in China have proved extremely profitable.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a special agency of the United Nations, estimates that sales revenue from the world's medical herbs reached US$43 billion last year. Although China is one of the countries of origin of medicinal herbs, it accounted for a paltry 5 per cent of revenue in the world market.

"The Chinese people have recorded more than 20,000 traditional medicines and over 400,000 prescriptions which have been passed down by their ancestors over the past 5,000 years," says Yang Hongju. "But until last year, only 33,000 had patent applications."

Policy dispute

In fact, the problem that China faces is not isolated. Worldwide, many indigenous arts were copied onto carpets, T-shirts and greeting cards. Traditional music was fused with popular dance rhythms to produce best-selling "world music" albums without attribution.

These issues, according to experts, have already ignited policy disputes between developing countries, which own abundant traditional culture and knowledge resources, and the developed countries that have the advantage in turning these resources into wealth.

"The debate about appropriate protection boils down to whether, and how, there should be changes to the existing boundary between the 'public domain' and the scope of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection," says Song Jianhua, deputy director general of the SIPO Legal Affairs Department.

Song says most of the developing countries believe that since the new creations frequently rely on borrowed culture and knowledge, the cultural communities, or the culture and knowledge holders, deserve to be acknowledged and to benefit from this use.

"But many developed countries argue that because much of the traditional culture and knowledge has been put into the public domain for hundreds of years, it is unfair to say that the specific culture and knowledge belongs to a small group of people," she says.

International co-operation

In fact, as the discussion on the protection of tradit ional culture and knowledge continues, more people have begun to realize that the issue will only be solved with co-operation among different countries under the framework of international law and administration.

International organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and WIPO have done a lot of work in recent years on this issue. In late 2000, WIPO established the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore."

However, Wang Bingying, assistant director general of WIPO, contends that currently the major obstacle to international co-operation is the lack of a fair and equitable benefit-sharing system that could win support from both developing and developed countries.

Being aware of the challenges it faces, the Chinese Government has been doubling its efforts to protect its traditional culture and knowledge.

In recent years, the country has been working to improve its Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) system, specifically in areas such as patents, trademarks, unfair competition and copyright. SIPO has even established a database of patent documentation of traditional Chinese medicine.

"China is also working on new legislation such as the Regulation on the Management of Biological Genetic Resources and the Third Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law, which will provide better protection to China's traditional cultural expressions, knowledge and genetic resources," says Song.

"But IPR protection is not only the job of the legislature and the government," Song adds, noting social organizations and enterprises also have their roles to play.

Home of kung-fu

The Shaolin Temple, located in Dengfeng City in Henan Province, is widely considered the birthplace of Chinese kung-fu, one of the most important representations of traditional Chinese culture. Unlike people in the birthplace of Mulan, monks in the 1,500-year-old Buddhist temple have a stronger awareness of protecting and promoting traditional culture through modern means.

In 1994, Shi Yongxin, abbot of the Shaolin Temple, established Henan Shaolin Temple Industrial Development Co Ltd to protect and promote the Shaolin culture. In 2000, the temple registered the Shaolin trademark for more than 100 categories of products in China and has applied for trademark registration in 68 other countries.

The temple has actively engaged in commercial activities such as holding kung-fu competitions and making films. Some Chinese media cited a British newspaper as saying that Shaolin Temple's annual revenue reached 10 million pounds (US$19.4 million) in recent years.

Although that figure has never been confirmed and the temple's commercial activities have invited heavy criticism, experts say it stands for one of the most successful stories in the protection and promotion of traditional Chinese culture through economic means - a far cry from Mulan fried melon seeds.

(China Daily 12/25/2006 page9)