China moves to protect traditional knowledge

GUIYANG, China -- Legislators in southwest China's Guizhou Province are mulling a regulation aimed at protecting property rights for traditional knowledge, especially knowledge relating to biological resources, said sources with the provincial bureau of intellectual property right.

For centuries the Miao ethnic group in southwestern China extracted herbal remedies to combat cold, cough and pneumonia from a type of grass called "guanyin cao".

But their failure to patent their traditional knowledge has seen them deprived of the chance to profit from their traditional knowledge, said An Shouhai, vice head of the Guizhou provincial bureau of intellectual property rights.