Examining The International Protection Of Chinese Traditional Medicine In Multidimentsional View

In intellectual property area, traditional medicine is one of the few products with potential advantage. However, the law specially made for it is in fact far less effective than general Intellectual Property Law. Aimed at resolving the contradiction between the fact that traditional medicine needs to be protected and the lack of special law, this thesis will propose the objects of traditional medicine law, and divide them into two catalogues: the technology of traditional medicine and the knowledge of traditional medicine. The former corresponds to the protection methods under intellectual property law, like the protection of patent and trade mark; the latter corresponds to the ones under intangible cultural heritage. In the mean time, in the view of international protection, administrative protection is necessary to form a all-round and integrated protection program for Chinese traditional medicine.The first part of this thesis, which is named as the current domestic and overseas protection situation of Chinese traditional medicine, will mainly introduce the bottleneck of our traditional medicine protection, the traditional protection system and new legislation, and international protection institutions and conventions. The author will then analyse the meaning and effect to traditional medicine from genetic resources and beneficial share system under the Convention on Biological Diversity, discuss the importance of the coordination of the Convention on Biological Diversity and TRIPS, and present the new challenges from the changes of EU law.The second part is named as the Chinese traditional medicine under patent law. Various questions will be discussed in this part, including the patentability scope of traditional medicine, the dispute of traditional Chinese medicine under method definitions,'the second officinal'and joint invention, and the importance of the application of PCT for our traditional medicine protection. Based on our new amendments of patent law and some of the new borned laws in EU and Taiwan, this thesis will propose some suggestions on the protection of traditional medicine under patent law.The third part, new light spots of traditional medicine protection under intellectual property law, will mainly analyze the advantages from trade mark system and geographical indications, discuss the maintenance of traditional medicine reputation in abroad, and introduce the Indian Traditional Knowledge Digital Library program and its effect.The forth part is named as the international protection of Chinese traditional medicine under intangible cultural heritage. From the view of human right and cultural diversity protection, in relation with our forthcoming Intangible Cultural Heritage Law which will come into force on 1 June 2011, a conclusion will be presented on the foundation of the discussion on the cultural protection of Japanese and other countries.