Protection Of Genetic Resources Under The Patent Law Background

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on5June1992, when people were involved in the endless controversy of how to protect their genetic resources from those so called ’Bio-pirate’, and eventually entered into force on29December1993which promoted the protecting of traditional knowledge and genetic resource to a higher stage. China amended the IP law in2008, created one to discipline the duty of disclosure on genetic resource, to disable the patentability of a certain invention or creation if it did not tell the very source of the genetic material it used, Thus started new conversations of IP protecting the genetic resources and especially on the topic of duty of disclosure. Meanwhile other crucial problems such as the Access and benefit sharing were also discussed a lot but never came to a decent result. This essay introduces several mainstream theories and regulations in protecting the genetic resource under the background of IP law, regulations or other relevant treaties. Through our analysis of those differences and difficulties in protecting the genetic resource via IP law, we are looking forward to get a clear observation of both domestic and global trend, what’s more, to get a practical idea for the future legislation.