PATENT PROTECTION OF TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE RELATING TO BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES IN SOUTH AFRICA

The search for new and better drugs by pharmaceutical companies is an ongoing and intensive one, in order to meet the growing demands of the population.1 These companies have increasingly realised that useful and valuable compounds lie in the natural resources that indigenous and local communities around the world have been utilising for centuries.2 Indigenous people have developed these natural resources into remarkable remedies that are now part of their traditional knowledge.3 The exploitation of indigenous communities by multinational companies wanting to benefit from such knowledge, spurred on by vast financial incentives, is devastating the communities‟ ability to economically benefit from the knowledge that they have developed.4 The race for scientific and commercial progress is thus argued to be bypassing the rights of indigenous communities