Kochi: A three-day Asia Pacific seminar on "Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources and Folklore" will be held in Kochi from November 11.

Sources said that the seminar would mainly to discuss intellectual property issues related to genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore and to produce an agreed data specification for the traditional knowledge databases.

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), an international organisation under the UN, along with the Ministry of Human Resources department and the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), is organising the seminar.

The increased incidence of piracy of traditional knowledge and the demand for legal protection of the developing countries, who are the custodians of these knowledge bases, had forced the international community to look at the need for setting new international norms. The WIPO in 1999 took the initiative to set in motion this process.

Experts from different parts of the world, including those from India would be presenting papers in the technical session. The three themes of the seminar are protection of intellectual property in genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore, the sources said.

PTI