Role of Intellectual Property in Protection of Biodiversity in Relation to Brand Protection

All living creatures including man together constitute biodiversity and they are dependent on each other for their existence and survival and this makes biodiversity necessary which therefore means that conservation of biodiversity is equally important. The word ‘biodiversity’ consists of two words ‘bio’ which means life and ‘diversity’ which means variability as it includes various life forms, so, biodiversity means existence of a huge number of various kinds of animals and plants which make a balanced environment.

Biodiversity has been brought to an international level by Convention on Biological diversity, 1992, also known as CBD which showed the concern for the conservation and protection of biodiversity. India enacted the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 in order to provide legislative recognition to the conservation of biodiversity. The main objectives of the biodiversity law are:

Ø  Conservation of biological diversity:

This can be done in two ways that is either conserving habitat in its natural habitat or conserving it in place other than the natural habitat.

Ø  Sustainable use of the components of biological diversity:

This means using and saving adequate for the future generation.

Ø  Equitable benefit sharing:

This means sharing the benefit which we get out of bio-resources in an equitable manner.

Further it’s important to know that why there is a relationship between intellectual property and biodiversity?

The relationship exists between them due to ‘bio-piracy’ which mean stealing or robbing the bio-resources or knowledge related to bio-resources. The knowledge which vests in bio-resources is not new and is being carried on from generation to generation and this knowledge is termed as ‘traditional- knowledge’ which is at stake because it is consistently being misused by people and organizations and traditional knowledge comes under intellectual property. Thus, they are directly related to each other. So, where there will be chances to harm the biodiversity in any manner there will be involvement of intellectual property law.

Now, we come to the basic issue which is the role of intellectual property law in protection of biodiversity for which it is necessary that we know the relationship between two laws.

Starting with patents, the bio-resources and traditional knowledge by themselves can’t be protected under patent law but patent may be granted on inventions based on traditional knowledge and/or bio-resources.

Bio-resources can be further protected under trade secret, geographical indications and under the plant varieties protection law. So, it may be noted that intellectual property laws are either directly or indirectly related to biodiversity law, the above mentioned laws that is the Patents Act, 1970; the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 are directly related to traditional knowledge, biodiversity and bio-piracy, where mainly dominated by patents.

The Copyright Act, 1957 is indirectly related with the traditional knowledge, biodiversity and bio-piracy as if the traditional knowledge is in a written form it may be copyrightable under the head of the literary work.

Trade mark may be used as a marketing tool for products involving traditional knowledge and biological material. It also provides us with the information on fake products and identifies them which help in stopping the piracy.

So, it appears that intellectual property laws are intensely related to the biodiversity and helps in protecting the biodiversity. Further, the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 makes express provisions regarding intellectual property under section 6 of the Act which empowers the National Biodiversity Authority to grant approval for obtaining an intellectual property right relating to a biological resource.

Hence, it is balance between the two laws and both works together for the protection of biodiversity. As India is growing in every aspect which also opens up the vulnerability of Indian bio-resources because it is one country which is blessed with bio-resources in abundance and globalization seems to be a threat for all these. Thus, the involvement of intellectual property laws becomes necessary either directly or indirectly and they play a great role in protecting biodiversity that arises from the relationship between both laws.

The companies or enterprises dealing with the bio-resources equally need to protect themselves from the bio-piracy and other threats both nationally and internationally for which they can take help of the brand protection services in India which provides platforms to fight against all these and one such well known platform is Brands and Fakes.