Research On The Protection Of Intellectual Property In Traditional Chinese Medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) is inherited national treasures and the collective wisdom through the efforts of generations for thousands of years. With the concept of health care and green life deeply rooted in people, gradually, TCM has caught world’s attention because of its "natural" and "moderate" features. The pharmaceutical industry also contains great potential in the "green" and "environmental" themes. However, the international pharmaceutical companies have developed vigorously in medical technology with a large number of TCM patents. The low quality of domestic technological innovations have impeded the developments of domestic enterprises in TCM. How to develop it better? In addition to technological innovations in medicine and a standardized system of workers, it also needs a good legal system. Though existing intellectual property(IP) law has played a positive role for the protection of TCM, there are still some disorders. Because the provision is not detail enough to operate.And until now, there is no International Intellectual Property protections for Chinese medicine. As we all know, effective protection is necessary for TCM`s developments. To provide effective IP protection for TCM is not only in accordance with China’s economic interests, but also good to spread Chinese culture over the world. Therefore it is necessary to combine the IP laws with TCM.Given the complexity of TCM, firstly, this thesis describes the characteristics of TCM, and defines the scope of the IP of TCM with the characteristics of IP protection system. Secondly, the thesis summarizes the status quo of patent protection, trade secret protection, administrative protection, and finds the problems thereof. Then it analyzes the necessity and feasibility of improving IP protection of TCM. According to the research results The conflicts between the current IP laws and regulations of TCM leads to poor technical innovation ability of TCM,and the lack of international standard of IP protection of TCM hinders the internationalization of TCM. However, people’s concept to protect TCM has changed,and the practice of foreign countries demonstrates the feasibility that improving IP protection of TCM can bring significant economic benefits. This thesis focus on the pros and cons of patent protection, trade secret protection in TCM, TCM variety protection, trademark protection of TCM, geographical indication protection of TCM.As a result, on the one hand, the thesis tries to set up a database of TCM for reviewing patents and makes the database to be perfect, then accelerates the process from local standards to the national standards of TCM, and integrates the structure of TCM enterprises, and establishes patent alliance, international foundation of TCM and other organizations to assist to expend the international market of TCM. On the other hand, the thesis hopes to raise some thinking on the system of IP protection of TCM.