The European Patent Office, or EPO, according to a news report, will consult the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, an Indian database that lists traditionally known drug formulations before granting patent rights.

The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, or TKDL, has been created by the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources, or Niscair, a CSIR body, and contains a 24-million-page searchable database that translates text from Sanskrit into English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese. CSIR has collaborated with the health ministry’s department of Ayush (Ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddhi and homeopathy) to make this happen.

TKDL is a database with a tool to understand the codified knowledge existing for the Indian Systems of Medicine including Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Yoga as prior art. It is not a diagnostic or usage database. TKDL is also not the prior art in itself; the Books on Indian Systems of Medicine are the prior art which act as the source of information for TKDL. However, TKDL contains the scanned images of medicinal formulations from the original books. TKDL covers over two lakh formulations which have been taken from Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga texts.

It is pertinent to note that TKDL does not contain the entire information existing in the Indian Systems of Medicine. Rather than comprehensive, TKDL is a dynamic database, where formulations will be continuously added and continuously updated according to the inputs from the users of the database.

The information on traditional medicines appears in a standard format in TKDL. For example, formulations on Indian Systems of Medicine appear in the form of a text, which comprises the following main components:

• Name of the drug
• Origin of the knowledge
• Constituents of the drug with their parts used and their quantity
• Method of preparation of the drug and usage of the drugs
• Bibliographic details

TKDL, gives modern names to plants (e.g., Curcuma longa for Turmeric), diseases (e.g., fever for jwar), or processes, mentioned in the literature related to Indian Systems of Medicine, and establishes relationship between traditional knowledge and modern knowledge.

Traditional Knowledge documentation lacked a classification system. Therefore, a modern classification system i.e. Traditional Knowledge Resource Classification (TKRC), based on the structure of International Patent Classification (IPC) was been evolved for Indian Systems of Medicine viz., Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Yoga. TKRC is a structured classification consisting of sections, classes, subclasses, groups and subgroups, similar to that included in IPC system, relating to Indian traditional knowledge for facilitating the patent examiners in retrieval of information related to prior art, before granting a patent in the area of traditional knowledge.

Patenting of products that are based on of India’s traditional knowledge has long been an issue the government has been struggling to resolve. In a widely reported case, EPO in 1995 granted a patent on the anti-fungal properties of Neem ,(Azadirachta indica),. India opposed the patent, which was finally revoked and invalidated after 10 years of litigation. Again in 1995, USPTO had granted a patent on the wound healing properties of turmeric that was revoked in 1997.