On International Legal Protection Of The Intellectual Property Of Traditional Chinese Medicine

With the globalization of the economy, the scope of the Intellectual Property subject matter is becoming much more broader. The Intellectual Property regime plays an active role when confronted with new technology, such as biotechnology, database and so on. Meanwhile, with the development of the modern technology in various fields, people concentrate more and more on genie resource, traditional knowledge and folklore that have a great influence on technology, environment, culture, economy, trade and the social development in nowadays. Yet the conflicts between the modern technology and the traditional knowledge(TK),the owners of TK or the holders of TK become much clearer. Many developing countries and the indigenous people and the local community in some developed countries ask for the recognition and protection of rights of TK, and require to share the benefit of using TK. In recent years, WIPO has been doing much work on this topic, and many countries believe that WIPO is the best forum to take TK into the protection of IP. The topic concern TK protection is taken into the agenda to the new round of WTO. As one part of TK, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) needs to be adequately protected by IP.This article discusses this problem in three aspects: The problems of legal protection of Traditional Medicine , the actuality and the countermeasure of protection by IP on Traditional Chinese Medicine. The author put forward that the IP should play an important role in protecting TCM in particular, and trying to maintain the balance between the holder of TCM, the third beneficiary of the user and the public interest.