We first reported on the use of Traditional Knowledge Digital Libraries as a means of fighting biopiracy nearly a year ago, and now the BBC has an update. India's TKDL is set to be opened for public viewing next year, and already holds 30 million pages of entries covering traditional medicines and practices, with photographs, scans and abundant detail. The goal isn't to restrict the use of these traditional medicines, but to ensure that they cannot be patented in places like the United States and Europe because of a lack of documented "prior art."
This will enable the revocation of patents on millennia-old plant-based medicines and health practices such as yoga -- various yoga positions have been patented in the US and Europe, despite their ancient history.
