'Lawyers prevent open access to the TKDL'

"[I]t is truly amusing to discover that this has what has prevented India’s “pioneering” Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) from opening up access to researchers....In a brief conversation recently, Samir K Brahmachari, the Director General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) (the institution behind the TKDL) revealed that the TKDL would remain available only to various patent offices who have entered into bilateral access and non-disclosure agreements with them. When asked how researchers could ensure they were not encroaching on TK when filing patent applications, the DG said there was no possibility at present of allowing researchers or innovators access to the TKDL, as, and I paraphrase, ‘lawyers would somehow find a way out of it.’ In fact, it appears that TKDL would be willing to open up the database, if only someone could come up with a model that keeps lawyers out of the system, and ensures that they are unable to access any data. Clearly, the TKDL is worried that the moment information from the database becomes available, lawyers will eventually work around the existing information to meet the requirements of inventive step for obtaining a patent grant...."