The Government may not grant 5 year data protection to traditional medicines. The whole article can be found here.
The change has been triggered by the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga,Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) taking the view that such a protection will lead to similar demands from the allopathic segment.
It was the Department of AYUSH which had suggested such data protection in the first instance. An inter-ministerial committee has also been constituted which has come to the conclusion that such protection must be afforded to traditional medicine.
I don’t entirely understand the point of protecting traditional medicine only for five years or how this would work in conjunction with the government’s efforts to document all forms of traditional medicine in a combined encyclopedia. Are we trying too many things to try to protect our traditional knowledge instead of focussing on one well thought out way?
