The first-ever national outline to protect property rights for indigenous knowledge on biological resources was released in October, a more developed line of defense to repel what some call "bio-pirates".

In an apparent move toward future legislation, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and several other ministries developed and jointly enacted a preliminary outline last October to address the longstanding issue after five years of discussions.

But field researchers are still urging nationwide legislation, without which they say the country's intellectual property (IP) protection will continue to be at stake.

Officials agree that the battle has to date been a lopsided contest.

The lowly, yet beneficial soybean is a widely cited example. Originally grown more than 5,000 years ago in China, the nation is home to nearly 90 percent - or 6,000 types - of the world's range of soybeans.

But because specimens have been widely disseminated, the gene pools in some advanced countries now store more than 20,000 soybean samples, and China, once the leading soybean grower and largest soybean exporter, has now become its largest importer, said SEPA deputy head Wu Xiaoqing in a recent interview.

Developing countries like China are vulnerable to having their own resources patented by foreign companies, leaving domestic firms to pay royalties abroad to use them, Wu said.

The United States had allegedly imported 4,452 soybean samples, 168 of them wild, from China as of June 30, 2002. Yet only 2,177 specimens were approved by Chinese authorities by that date, and wild soybeans were not even listed.

Another example is the kiwifruit, which originated from China more than 2,800 years ago and was referred to as "Chinese gooseberries", even in New Zealand where it is renowned.

Seeds of the fruit - traditionally known in China as changchu - were first introduced to the island in 1903, when New Zealand teacher Isobel Frazer returned from visiting her sister at a church mission in Yichang of Hubei province. A century later, the kiwifruit industry has become a billion-dollar powerhouse and New Zealand's largest horticultural export earner.

Another and less-known case is the guanyin cao of the Miao ethnic group in southwestern Guizhou. The people there have extracted herbal remedies from the grass to cure colds and bronchial afflictions for centuries.

Of course it wouldn't occur to the Miao people to patent the ancient knowledge, so they have been deprived of the chance to potentially profit from it, says An Shouhai, deputy head of Guizhou's provincial bureau of IP rights.

Japanese and Korean companies have been analyzing the molecular make-up of the grass and Chinese drug makers could suffer economic losses if foreign researchers patent therapies based it, the Xinhua News Agency reports.

In some cases, foreign companies have patented hereditary biological resources from China and profited from products after research and development into the material.

China imports just one-tenth of the biological resources it exports or otherwise loses, according to official figures.

In addition to foreign use of biological resources and traditional wisdom through patents with little or any recompense, serious environmental degradation and land development in the country already endanger 20 to 40 percent of China's biological resources, said Wu.

Together they pose serious risks to the country's natural heritage, so China aims to comprehensively enhance biodiversity conservation by 2020, as outlined in the central government's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10) for national socioeconomic development and specified in SEPA's October 2007 framework.

More than 40 countries, each rich in biodiversity, have already implemented laws and regulations to combat bio-piracy. Officials and experts note the importance of collaborating with like-minded developing countries such as India, which has waged a successful campaign over Basmati rice patents, as well as the World Trade Organization and other global forums to safeguard the interests of holders of traditional knowledge.

(China Daily 01/14/2008 page9)

2013-07-17