Focus On Intellectual Property Rights by George Clack (Editor)

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More than one million pirated CDs and DVDs were confiscated and then destroyed in this September 15, 2005, anti-piracy crackdown in Jakarta, Indonesia. 34 e director general of the government’s Office for the Rights of Authors, in turn, outlined Burkina Faso’s anti-piracy strategy. e strategy will include setting up an independent anti-piracy organization; issuing a common policy with the neighboring countries to secure the borders against pirated goods; setting up a subregional court in charge of copyrights; providing intellectual property rights (IPR) training to judges, gendarmes, police, and customs agents; and pressing criminal charges against pirates and sellers of pirated goods, of which there are an estimated 100,000 in Burkina Faso.

45 Within the United States, some Native American tribes are cataloging their tribal values in a way that fulfi lls the need for documentation and the need to limit outsiders’ access to information. S. state of Washington, for example, have developed a sophisticated digital computer inventory, named “Cultural Stories,” that delineates who is to have access to what traditional information about their knowledge, history, culture, or practices. S. patent examiners, may have limited access. Some holders of traditional knowledge want to be sure that any new discoveries derived from their traditional knowledge include an equitable sharing of benefits.

Several developing countries are working toward this end. India and China have been very involved in developing searchable digital libraries of their traditional knowledge, Lourie said. S. patent examiners regularly check the international databases that are already in use. Lourie acknowledged that some traditional knowledge holders might want to keep certain aspects of their knowledge secret or limited to specific individuals or groups. If so, she said, they may want to take steps to guard their knowledge as a trade secret.