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h” or to marks “acquired through use in good faith.”

GI that have become generic customary terms in member countries

The level of protection of goods other than wine ad sprits which are highly protected.

The controversy here is that wine and spirits are only the limited products that are often cultivated by big corporation who benefit from those protections. Therefore, instead of beneficiating the developing countries, it is the big multinational organisations from the developed nations who are protected. This is on other words, a form of capitalism in disguise.

According to the African Group, the categories of goods should be extended to cover a larger variety of products. They believe that limiting protecting to only wine and sprits would “not constitute a fair and equitable treatment of the rights and interest” of all the WTO members, especially the developing nations.

Biodiversity and indigenous knowledge

Biological diversity and indigenous knowledge is seen as the area where there is the greatest conflict of interest for developing countries. The problem with the implementation of the obligations under the WTO and the provision of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) is that their traditional and indigenous knowledge can now be used by the developed and industrialized countries. This knowledge which represented their self is no longer theirs. This means that the benefits earned by the big corporations from the use of the developing nation knowledge would not be earned by them but by those using the knowledge.

Therefore to remedy to this problem, the developing countries opted foe an intellectual property registration system that would enable them to identify whether their indigenous knowledge was use in the product development of the big corporations in the developing nations.

The cases however have become more serious, where industrialized countries have already invented products that are derived from products and knowledge used by the developing nations for years. For example: the patenting of traditional herbal remedies which was derived from the use of turmeric, the patenting of basmati rice, long used in Pakistan and India are only few examples.

To add to the controversies is the conflicting requirements of the CBC and TRIPs agreement. The CBC requires that “genetic resources and traditional knowledge be used following the granting of Prior Informed Consent (PIC) by holder of such material and knowledge”, the TRIPs on the other does not require PIC. The implication foe the developing countries here would be with regards to sovereignty.

By accepting patenting of indigenous knowledge and genetic material the developing countries are given the developed one the opportunity to compromise their economic independence in either the short or long term. The inclusion of the PIC would give indication of the benefits being agreed and shared between the holder of the knowledge and the user.

Moreover, indigenous knowledge and genetic material should be considered as public domain and therefore cannot be patented. This would exclude traditional remedies, cuisine and other traditional applications. This might reduce the conflicts but not solve the major issue of the further inventions among the local communities.

TRIPs has made it possible for businesses to